ems 


me 


Ve Wy r 
NCA 
C a 


1 Mie 
OND ae) UNV VY Sy 


Mesa tian 
FR ak s 


f \ t \ Wes 
: , ‘ i if Mf ne 9 Me 
| Beer anette oe 


PRESENTED BY 


Charles R.Oornins: 


THE UNIVEASITY 
OF ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


Sao 
Liakx 
897 


Return this book on or before the 
Latest Date stamped below. A 
charge is made on all overdue 
books. 


| University of Illinois Library 


ne .. 


APR 06 2091 
4-\I-! 


<p A ary 3 M32 


? : 2 = t 
| ri 


LIBRARY 
_ UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URBANA 


A. 


CZAR NICHOLAS. 


= ’ _ 


DO, 
RUSSIA AND: TURKEY 


IN 


ie NING UREN THo GENT URY 


BY 


ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER 


AUTHOR OF “FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY,” “SALVAGE,” 
“MY WIFE AND MY WIFE’S SISTER,’ “PRINCESS AMELIE,” 
* FAMILIAR TALKS ON SOME OF SHAKESPEARE’S 
COMEDIES,” ETC. 


FOURTH EDITION 


CHEC AG @ 
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
1897 


OD WORTH 


U j 
7 | 
ae 


Ne Ac Aoi ie Sirus 
; as + es 
an | 
oS 
of 
i CoPpyRIGHT 
Byala McCLuRG AND Co. 
A.D. 1893 : 
”* : 


a 


he Sh a ales iar 


NOTE 


THE kindness with which “France in the Nine- 
foeutne Century. has been received: (by my ‘critics 
and the public encourages me to put forth this 
companion volume on ‘Russia and Turkey.” It 
was composed under the same circumstances as 
“France,” and if it shall be found to have appro- 
priated too freely what belongs to other writers I 
make for it the same apology. 


dy ABN 


HowaRD County, MARYLAND. 


September, 1893. 


Mam, cre 


bf SOUGU 


: pe + 
_ i 

nag) 

if Ly eins 


ah See 
7 
sve 


By 


CONE N les 


CHAPTER 


I, 


Iki 


XVI. 


THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER I. AND MADAME 
DE KRUDENER 


THE GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE AND JANETTA 
GRUDZINSKA 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM 

TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS 

THE CZAR NICHOLAS 

THE CRIMEAN WAR . 

THE CRIMEAN WAR (concluded) 

THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR AND HIS REFORMS . 
FouR SULTANS 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877.— GENERAL SKO- 
BELEFF 


THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER II. 


ALEXANDER III. 


SIBERIA.—CENTRAL ASIA.— [THE BALTIC PROV- 


INCES.— THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS 
SULTAN ABDUL HAMID 


THE TWO DANUBIAN KINGDOMS. — SERVIA AND 
ROUMANIA 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES 


PAGE 


103 
134 
167 
197 


232 
265 


282 


3093 
335 


3>/ 
381 


SOL TELUS RA GIONS: 


(eZARS NICHOLAS... 

EMPEROR ALEXANDER I... . 
MADAME DE KRUDENER .. . 
GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE . . 
MOREA GISAN © 6 4 jays be. 
MARSHAL SAINT-ARNAUD . 
GENERAL TODLEBEN 

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE . 
EMPEROR ALEXANDER II. 
SUPTANPABDULCAZIZ #4 (2 a els 
SULTAN MURAD V.. 

SULTAN ABDUL HAmIp II. 
GENERAL SKOBELEFF 

EMPEROR ALEXANDER III. .. . 
EMPRESS OF RUSSIA 

MIDHAT PASHA 

KING MILAN OF’ SERVIA 

EEN MIN ATHALIE (0) 5 ar pe ls 
KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA . 
QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ROUMANIA 
PRINCE FERDINAND OF ROUMANIA 
PRINGESSSIMARIE << « «3 
PRINCE FERDINAND OF BULGARIA 


. . frontispiece 
. To face page 16 
24 


ale emake ste 3,7 4 
oP ae ae ee 3 <3,7°5 


eee 400 


er She ta 
PAG see ds 
Et en ore) 


Tsp Anan Nae Is KEY. 


Piney NINETEEN THs CENTURY. 


CHARTE Rael, 
THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER I. AND MADAME DE KRUDENER. 


OMEBODY has said of Russia that it is the most 
extraordinary country on the globe, in the four most 
‘important particulars of empire: its history, its extent, its 
population, and its power. It has risen into importance 
only since the early part of the last century, and ever since 
it began to rise it has been the cause of continual alarm 
to Western Europe. All international efforts have been 
directed toward thwarting its schemes of aggression, and 
to the repression of its ‘‘ manifest destiny,” yet it has held 
the balance of power in its hands in almost every crisis of 
modern European history. 

Peter the Great, who flourished at the close of the seven- 
teenth century, and in the dawn of the eighteenth, was not 
the reformer or restorer of Russia, he was its creator. He 
found it Asiatic, he left it European, —a work for which 
Panslavist fanatics at the present day are by no means 
grateful. 

In the days of the Vikings Russia had been more or less 
connected with the Norsemen. Its chief kingdom, whose 
seat of empire was at Novgorod, was a settlement of North- 
men, whence Harold Hardrada (killed in England, 1066, 


10 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


three weeks before the battle of Hastings) brought home 
to Norway Elizabeth, its king’s daughter, as his bride. 

The kingdom of Novgorod was overturned by invading 
Tartars, and little more was heard in Europe of Muscovy 
until in the sixteenth century, when Captain Sir Richard 
Chancelor, seeking the Northeastern Passage, wandered 
into the White Sea, and was thence conducted to the bar- 
baric court of Ivan the Terrible. That formidable monarch 
received Chancelor at Moscow, “seated on a very royal 
throne,” having upon his head a diadem of gold; “his 
robe was all of goldsmith’s work,’’ in his hand “he bore a 
crystal sceptre, garnished and beset with precious stones, 
and his countenance was no less full of majesty.” Upon 
one side of his throne stood his chief scrivener, and upon 
the other the great “‘ commander of silence,” or court usher, 
in costly dresses of cloth of gold. Around the chamber 
were seated his council of one hundred and fifty noblemen, 
“upon high seats, all clad as richly.” 

Having presented letters from King Edward VI., which 
were received most graciously, Chancelor and his officers 
were invited to dine with the Czar. The English captain 
seems to have been much impressed by the profusion of 
gold and silver plate displayed on the occasion, and espe- 
cially by four mighty flagons nearly two yards high, 
wrought on the top with elegant devices of towers and 
dragons’ heads. The servants were arrayed in habits of 
gold, but the guests wore white linen; and the Czar twice 
changed his crown during the banquet. 

Still more magnificent was Ivan’s entertainment on 
Christmas Day, 1559, of another English guest, who came 
as an ambassador from Queen Elizabeth, and who was 
much astonished at seeing twelve massive barrels made of 
silver and hooped with fine gold, each containing twelve 
gallons of wine. Ivan was a second Nero, full of promise 
in his youth, but after he reached full age crazed by the 
responsibilities of absolute power. 


1 United Service Magazine. 


ALEXANDER I. AND MADAME DE KRUDENER. II 


In 1568 Elizabeth despatched her favorite diplomatist, 
Sir Thomas Randolph to the Russian court. His mission 
was to negotiate a commercial treaty and to soften her 
refusal of the Czar’s offer of marriage, that potentate having 
been added to the list of her Majesty’s cajoled and rejected 
suitors. 

After that Russia sank back into the obscurity of barbar- 
ism for one hundred years. 

Early in the seventeenth century, the race of sovereigns to 
which Ivan belonged having become extinct in the male 
line, the House of Romanoff, which claimed royal descent 
through females, ascended the throne. The first sovereign 
of that dynasty, named Michael, was elected “by an 
assembly of the States,’’ and crowned July 13, 1613, — 
that is, two years after King James’s Bible was first printed, 
and three years before Shakespeare died. 

The next Romanoff was Alexis. The son of Alexis was 
Peter the Great, who after being harassed by various con- 
spiracies, and sharing for a few years his throne with Ivan, 
his elder brother, became Emperor and Autocrat of all the 
Russias. The title assumed by Ivan I. in 1340 had been 
Grand Prince of the various provinces called Russias, which 
though governed by their own dukes, and their own laws, 
paid tribute, and owed fealty to the Grand Prince of 
Muscovy. 

We are all familiar with the history of Peter the Great. 
We know how he travelled that he might return home and 
instruct his people; how he learned ship-building in Hol- 
land; how he visited England, — where Wilham III. 
requested Mr. Evelyn to lend his house, and garden of rare 
herbs, to his semi-civilized guest ; how Peter's amusement 
was to be wheeled through the trim hedges in a wheel- 
barrow; how he returned to Russia; how he founded a 
navy, conquered Livonia, reclaimed a swamp in it, and 
built St. Petersburg ; how he humbled Charles of Sweden ; 
how he acquired all the Baltic Provinces; and how, dying 
in 1725 at the age of fifty-three, he left his throne to 


I2 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


‘Catherine his peasant wife, having previously named their 
son Peter as her heir. Peter was not his oldest son. A 
year before his accession, when he was seventeen, he had 
married his first wife, a noble Russian lady, Eudoxia 
Lapuchin, by whom he had had one son named Alexis. 
Eudoxia he divorced, but she survived him. Alexis was 
brought up with neither love nor care. Catherine had 
naturally no affection for her step-son, and was ambitious 
to make her own son Peter his father’s heir. The customs 
of Russia at that day gave a father absolute power over the 
life of his child. The Grand Duke Alexis, neglected and 
unhappy, led probably an irregular life; at any rate he drew 
down upon himself the displeasure of his father, who 
ordered him either to reform, or to retire into a monastery. 
After trying for six months to conform to his father’s wishes, 
Alexis made his escape to Vienna. He was soon, however, 
forced to return to Russia. There the higher clergy, the 
chief officers of state, and the leading nobles were con- 
vened at Moscow to try him. Alexis acknowledged himself 
unworthy to wear the crown, but entreated that his life 
might be spared. His trial was followed by his confine- 
ment in a prison and by the nomination of Catherine as her 
husband’s successor. 

Alexis was not left in peace in his imprisonment. His 
father employed every means to extract from him the names 
of his confidants and advisors. For five months he was 
subjected to constant interrogations ; at last his father pro- 
nounced him worthy of death, and the next day he was 
found murdered. ‘The father suffered pangs of remorse for 
this act in his later years. When he died he left his throne, 
as I have said, to Catherine, who had unbounded influence 
over him. } 

Peter, their son, had died before his father, and Catherine, 
who reigned only two years, exercised the prerogative of a 
Russian sovereign, namely, that of choosing a successor, by 
leaving her crown to Peter II., son of the unfortunate Alexis. 
He was a lad of thirteen, and after the death of her own 


F 


ALEXANDER I, AND MADAME DE KRUDENER. 13 


child, she had shown him kindness, and interested herself 
in his education. Peter lived only two years after ascending 
the throne; and then followed a strange entanglement of 
succession. The Russian nobles, passing over the two 
daughters of Peter the Great (Anna, who had married a 
duke of Holstein, and Elizabeth) offered their crown to 
the widowed Duchess of Courland, Anna Ivanovna, daugh- 
ter of Peter’s elder brother. At her death she left it to. 
Ivan IV., son of her niece Anne, who had married Prince 
Antoine Ulrich of Brunswick. But Elizabeth, daughter of 
Peter the Great and of Catherine, easily effected a coup 
@ état, imprisoned Ivan and his parents, and reigned till 1762. 
She made no legitimate marriage, though she was probably 
married secretly to a young Cossack whom she raised to 
many dignities, Alexis Razumoffsky. She adopted as her 
successor Peter, the son of her sister Anna and the Prince 
of Holstein Gottorp. She caused him to be brought up at 
the Russian court and married him to the penniless Princess. 
Sophia Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst. This lady, who on her 
baptism into the Greek Church took the name of Catherine, 
was a woman of extraordinary vigor, ambition, and ability. 
When Peter began to ill-treat her she made short work of’ 
so feeble a husband. She forced him to abdicate, and then 
suffered him, after his abdication, to be poisoned in a few 
hours. She is known in Russian history as Catherine II., 
or Catherine the Great. She applied a strong coating of 
French varnish to Russian barbarism. She was noted for 
her many lovers, for her wars with Frederick the Great, and 
also with the Turks in the Crimea; but most of all for her 
share in the partition of Poland, a country whose great mis- 
fortune it has been to have no natural boundaries. 

Catherine had had one son by her husband Peter, the 
Grand Duke Paul. She kept him, as long as she lived, in 
a state of servile tutelage, even taking from him his children 
as soon as they were weaned, and bringing them up under 
her own eye. 

Paul’s first wife died very young, and he was then mar: 


14. RUSSIA AND TURKEYIN THEAIXIS CEN TORY. 


ried to the Princess Dorothea of Montbelliard, a tiny prin- 
cipality in the east of France, shut in between the Vosges 
and Jura Mountains. No sweeter princess ever lived than 
Princess Dorothea, who, on her baptism into the Greek 
Church, took the name of Marie Feodorovna. Madame 
d’ Oberkirch was her dearest friend, and has left a charming 
account in her memoirs of the one bright episode in poor 
Paul’s life, his travels with his wife in 1782, through France, 
Italy, and Holland, as the Comte and Comtesse du Nord. 
Though they professed to travel incognito their identity 
was perfectly well understood in the courts they visited. 
Louis XVI. and poor Marie Antoinette were lavish of atten- 
tions to them. The Princess was beautiful, gentle, and 
well-informed ; the Prince was very plain, with a Calmuck 
face, and but little education ; but he had a kind heart, and 
for years the married pair were happy together. Paul had 
strong faith in the supernatural, and believed that he had 
seen a vision forewarning him of his death by violence, but 
it seems to need no ghostly visitant to predict to a prince 
of the House of Romanoff so very probable a destiny. 

Paul and Marie had many children, of whom four were 
sons, Alexander, Constantine (so called by his grandmother, 
who destined him to enter Constantinople as its conqueror) 
Nicholas, and Michael. Of these Alexander and Nicholas 
became Czars. 

Catherine one night retired to rest after drinking large 
quantities of black coffee, as was her custom. In the 
morning her attendants found her lying speechless and 
dying on her chamber floor. 

Paul ascended the throne in 1796, —in the early days of 
the French Revolution. He had never been allowed during 
his mother’s life to take the smallest part in the affairs of 
government. He had been permitted, however, to “ play 
at soldiers,’’ and his first idea on becoming possessed of 
imperial power was to alter the dress, discipline, and equip- 
ments of his army. This made him intensely unpopular. 
He also sent an army, under his brilliant but half crazy 


ALEXANDER 1. AND MADAME DE KRUDENER. 15 


general, Suwarroff, to fight the French Republic, an army 
that did wonders in Northern Italy, and in the mountains 
of Switzerland. Soon, however, Paul became dazzled by 
the brilliant career of Napoleon Bonaparte. ‘The result of 
their alliance was that he undertook to combine the fleets 
of the Northern Powers against England. ‘This led to 
Nelson’s Battle of Copenhagen, by which he anticipated 
and disconcerted the intended movement, by the destruc- 
tion of the Danish fleet, before England had put forth a 
declaration of war. 

Russia was not in sympathy with her Czar’s predilection for 
the French and their great captain. <A party of conspirators 
secured the army, and declared Paul mad. Indeed, he had 
shown many symptoms of the malady hereditary in his family. 
Among other things he built a new palace at St. Petersburg 
at great expense, and insisted on having its decorations red. 
The accounts of his behavior to his family during the last 
weeks of his reign vary exceedingly. Some say that he was 
affectionate to his wife and children to the last; others, 
that he was on the point of arresting his sons, and incar- 
cerating the empress, when the conspiracy broke out 
which ended his life. There is no doubt that he har- 
assed and disgusted his army with vexatious regulations 
about dress and hair-powder, which last, Suwarroff told 
him bluntly, had nothing to do with gunpowder ; and Paul 
dismissed his victorious general for saying so. 

On the night of March 24, 1801, the conspirators, who 
had drunk deeply, repaired to the palace. One of them 
led a troop of soldiers stealthily beneath its walls. Skirting 
that part of the building was an avenue of lindens. In the 
lindens roosted a multitude of rooks which, disturbed by the 
stir at midnight, cawed so loudly that it was feared their 
noise would wake the emperor. A body of soldiers was 
then led across the moat, the water in which was frozen. 
The sentinels on duty were surprised and disarmed. A 
party was detailed to enter the emperor’s sleeping-room. 
They passed up to it by a narrow private staircase leading 


16 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


from the garden. ‘This party consisted of three brothers 
named Zouboff, two leading Russian generals, and several 
others. A faithful Cossack, who kept watch before his 
master’s door, defended the entrance till he was covered 
with wounds, and then he rushed away to bring assistance. 
The conspirators were in full uniform, with plumed hats on 
their heads and swords in their hands. The emperor 
started up as they entered his chamber. “Sire !’’ they 
said, “‘we have come to arrest you.” Paul sprang from his 
bed. They repeated that they had come to arrest him, 
and that he must abdicate. As Zouboff went to the door 
to call in others of the party, General Benningsen found a 
moment in which to whisper to his master, “Sire, your 
life is in danger; you must abdicate!’’ As he spoke a 
number of conspirators poured into the room. Paul tried 
to defend himself. He sprang behind a table, on which at 
night he kept two loaded pistols ; but the conspirators fell 
upon him, threw him down, and strangled him, tearing a 
scarf for that purpose from the waist of a sub-officer who 
was present. Paul struggled bravely ; but numbers over- 
powered him. 

Before morning the Grand Duke Alexander was pro- 
claimed emperor, and St. Petersburg was in a frenzy of 
joy. 

But although Alexander I. acquiesced in his own elevation 
to the throne, he never got over the melancholy caused by 
the assassination of his father, and he took the earliest oppor- 
tunity of manifesting his detestation of the murderers. 

His first act was to make peace with England, and to 
join the alliance against France, and General Bonaparte 
her First Consul; but six years later, at Tilsit, in 1807, he 
fell under the spell of Napoleon’s personal influence, and 
became devotedly his friend. 

After this friendship had lasted some years, Napoleon’s 
overbearing conduct in enforcing what was called ‘ The 
Continental Blockade,” drove Alexander into alliance with 
his enemies. ‘ The Continental Blockade” prescribed that 


EMPEROK ALEXANDER 1. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINCIS 
URBANA 


ALEXANDER I. AND MADAME DE KRUDENER. 17 


no article of English manufacture, nor any article that had 
been shipped on board any English ship, or had been 
previously landed on the shores of England, should enter 
any port of France or any port of her allies. All such 
goods were to be burned upon the beach in a public 
conflagration. 

When Alexander I. joined the allies, Napoleon retaliated 
by the invasion of Russia. He did not strengthen himself 
by making Poland, which lay behind him, into an inde- 
pendent kingdom, nor by raising, as he was advised to do, 
a force of fifty thousand Polish Cossacks to keep open his 
communications with France. He pushed on in the ter- 
rible winter of 1812 into the heart of the frozen empire. 
Many a campaign has been won by “ pushing on; ”’ but it 
has always been by “ pushing dn”’ to some place where an 
army could find supplies. Napoleon’s army “pushed on” 
to desolation and starvation, ‘There had never been known 
so cold or so early a winter. But this is not the place to 
dwell upon the horrors of the retreat of the French army 
from Moscow. . 

The Emperor Alexander, the hero of the day, led the 
allied armies in return to Paris. There he endeavored to 
procure generous conditions of peace for the Emperor Napo- 
leon, his former friend. While Marie Louise was abandon- 
ing her husband, Josephine, the repudiated wife, caught 
her death from a cold contracted while walking round the 
gardens of Malmaison with the Emperor Alexander, trying 
to interest him in the fortunes of the man whom she still 
held dear. 

In the Congress of Vienna Alexander hoped to get the 
consent of Europe to his encroachments upon Turkey, and 
so to approach the object of all Russian policy, — the acqui- 
sition of Constantinople as an outlet to the Mediterranean. 
The allied powers would not further his ambition in that 
direction. They compensated him by confirming him in 
the acquisition of Finland, and permitted him to do what 


he would in Poland. 
2 


18 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Alexander sent his brother Constantine (who was a semi- 
barbarian) to govern Poland as his viceroy. While there 
Constantine became passionately attached to Janetta Grud- 
zinska, a Polish lady, and this attachment had great influ- 
ence on his after history. 

When Napoleon came back from Elba in 1815, Alexander 
could no longer stand his friend with the other allies. The 
ex-emperor was banished to St. Helena, and Alexander, 
after projecting what was called the Holy Alliance, returned 
to his own country. Some account may not be here unin- 
teresting of the singular and enthusiastic woman who 
exercised an all-powerful influence over him for several 
years. 

Her maiden name was Barbara Julie von Wielinghoff, 
and her age was fifty, when in 1814 she first met the Em- 
peror Alexander. She, however, had been born a Russian 
subject, and at eighteen had been married to a kind and 
just man twenty years older than herself, the Baron von 
Kriidener. She accompanied her husband on several high 
diplomatic missions, and she was clever, lively, devoted 
to pleasure, imaginative, and susceptible. No wonder that 
in the state of society that prevailed in those days in high 
places, her conduct during an absence from her husband 
at some baths in the South of France, was such that she 
deeply repented of it for the remainder of her days. M. 
de Kriidener, to whom she was sincerely attached, though 
in his absence she had accepted the attentions of a lover, 
forgave his wife, and was very merciful to her. He ex- 
acted however a promise that she would give up the fas- 
cinations of the world, and lead a domestic life with him 
in retirement. Fifteen years later she took advantage of a 
permission he had given her to visit the Baths of Toplitz, to 
extend her journey into Switzerland. Her husband remon- 
strated, but she took her own way, and was punished by soon 
receiving news that M. de Kriidener had died very suddenly 
of apoplexy. She bitterly reproached herself, but was soon 
again absorbed in frivolity. She published “ Valérie,” a novel 


ALEXANDER I. AND MADAME DE KRUDENER. 19 


of some merit, and showed a most wonderful vanity of 
authorship in connection with it. But in 1804, when forty 
years of age, tired of a life of folly and self-seeking, she left 
Paris, and sought refuge with her mother at Riga. 

Several events that befel her had great influence over 
her imagination. One day a shoemaker waited upon her 
by appointment to take her measure fora pair of shoes. 
As he measured her foot she did not look at him, but sat 
shading her face with her hand. He asked her some 
question, she raised her eyes, and fixing them upon his face 
thought she had never seen a countenance so happy. It 
sent a pang to her heart, for she by contrast felt herself so 
miserable. ‘‘ My friend, are you happy?” she asked. He 
answered, ‘1 am the happiest of men.’ She said nothing, 
but the tone of his voice and the sincerity of his look haunted 
her, sleeping and waking. 

A few days after this she sent for him again. He wasa 
Moravian Brother (in other words, a German Methodist), 
and in all sincerity and simplicity he preached Christ unto 
her. Soon, with all the fervor of a forgiven sinner she 
loved Him who had first loved her. 

En peu ad’heures Dieu laboure is a homely French pro- 
verb. Madame de Kriidener in a short time experienced 
a great change within herself, and a new stimulus was 
given to all her powers. She devoted herself to the study 
of the Scriptures, and to spreading the knowledge of Christ 
wherever her influence could reach among rich or poor. 
Two years later, in 1806, she became the friend of the good 
Queen Louise of Prussia, and together they ministered to 
sick and wounded soldiers. At this time Madame de 
Kriidener, accompanied by her daughter, began to travel 
through all parts of Germany and Switzerland, a wander- 
ing Evangelist, preaching Christ to Protestants and Catho- 
lics alike. 

Sometimes she rested for a while in Christian house- 
holds. At Geneva she associated with herself a young 
man, expelled from the ranks of the divinity students for 


20 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT# CENTURY. 


his persistency in holding prayer-meetings. She was found 
in the cabins of the poor, and in the chéteaux of the great. 
Among those ladies of high rank who came under her 
influence were the mother of the wife of the Emperor 
Alexander, her daughters the Queens of Sweden and 
Bavaria, the Grand Duchess of Hesse, the Duchess of 
Brunswick, and Queen Hortense of Holland. But every- 
where she went the police looked upon her as a sus- 
picious person. ‘They feared she might prove dangerous 
to Church and State. Sometimes she was hurried from 
place to place, sometimes she was forbidden to speak at 
all, sometimes her friends were separated from her, some- 
times gens d’armes set a watch upon her, sometimes her 
correspondence was intercepted. The movement was so 
noyel in those times that officials knew not what to think 
of it. One of those persons whom she greatly strength- 
ened in the faith was Joseph Wolff, the future travelling 
missionary. 

But Madame de Kriidener’s exhuberant enthusiasm and 
unguarded disposition brought her into association with 
two religious charlatans, a Marie Kummer who “dreamed 
dreams, and saw visions,’ and a French priest, her follower. 
These people greatly damaged Madame de Kriidener’s 
mission by their extravagances and their self-seeking. 

She had long wished to know and to exhort the Emperor 
Alexander. She had mentioned this wish to persons high 
in the Russian court, and she believed herself especially 
commissioned to proclaim God’s truth to him. 

Alexander had in 1812 been under strong religious con- 
victions. In 1813, when his armies met with such marvel- 
ous good fortune, his heart had been bent on giving God 
the glory, but in 1814 he went to the Congress of Vienna, 
and there, for a while, he gave himself up to “riotous 
living.” 

Here is his own account of himself as he wrote it to a 
friend. He had quitted Vienna, disgusted with himself, 
and was passing a few days in salutary solitude at Heilbrun 
in Bavaria. He says : — 


ALEXANDER I. AND MADAME DE KRUDENER. 21 


“ At length I breathed freely, and the first thing I did was to 
take up a book that I always carry about with me; but in con- 
sequence of the dark cloud which rested upon my mind the 
reading made no impression upon me. My thoughts were con- 
fused and my head oppressed. I let the book fall, and thought 
what a comfort conversation with some pious friend would be 
tome. This idea brought you to my mind; I remembered what 
you had told me about Madame de Kriidener, and the desire 
that I had expressed to you to make her acquaintance. ‘I won- 
der,’ I said, ‘where she is now, and whether I shall ever meet 
her.’ No sooner had this passed through my mind than I heard 
a knock at the door. It was Prince Wolkousky, who said, with 
an air of the greatest annoyance, that he was very sorry to dis- 
turb me at so unseasonable an hour, but that he could not get 
rid of a lady who was determined tosee me. He said her name 
was Madame de Kriidener. You may imagine my amazement. 
I thought I must be dreaming, and exclaimed: ‘Madame de 
Kriidener! Madame de Kridener?’ This sudden response to 
my thoughts could not be accidental. I saw her at once, and 
she addressed such powerful and comforting words to me that 
it seemed as if she had read my very soul; and they calmed the 
storm which had been assailing me.” 


“The bearer of the divine message,” says the narrator, 
‘drew aside the veil from the emperor’s mind. She told 
him of his sins, of the frivolity and pride with which he 
had entered on his mission. ‘No, your Majesty, you have 
not yet cried out like the Psalmist, “ God be merciful to me 
asraders 2... «lhe emperor shed).tears, and hid his 
face in his hands. Madame de Kriidener apologized for 
her earnestness. ‘No! go on,’ he said, ‘your words are 
music to my soul.’”’ Three hours passed in conversation of 
this nature, and the emperor implored Madame de Kriidener 
not to forsake him. He felt that no one had ever before 
so touched his conscience, and unveiled the truth to him. 
At Heidelberg, his next halting-place, he besought her to 
hire a little cottage connected with the garden of the house 
he occupied, and there he spent every other evening. He 
selected chapters in the Bible for reading, and their con- 
versations were often prolonged till two o’clock in the 


22 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


morning. The news of the battle of Waterloo reached 
them as they were reading the Psalms. The emperor, 
Madame de Kriidener, and Empaytaz (the ex-student from 
Geneva) threw themselves on their knees. After a prayer 
and a thanksgiving the emperor cried: “Oh, how happy I 
am !— my Saviour is with me. lama great sinner, but He 
will employ me to give peace to the nations! Oh, how 
happy might all be if they would only understand the ways 
of Providence and obey the gospel!” 

When Alexander went with the Allied Armies to Paris he 
requested Madame de Kriidener to follow him, and in the 
evenings he came to her house with his Bible under his 
arm. He was a man who yielded himself always without 
reserve to any prevailing personal influence. Before he left 
Paris he was very desirous of making a public profession of 
faith, and he formed with his allies what was called the 
Holy Alliance, by which Ze meant an alliance to promote 
the reign of the gospel by putting down all anarchic and 
revolutionary ideas, and the other Powers meant an alliance 
to oppose every movement in Europe calculated to disturb 
the state of things imposed upon the nations by the Con- 
gress of Vienna. 

When Alexander returned to Russia and no longer daily 
saw Madame de Kriidener, her influence over him waned. 
She took a lively interest in the unhappy Christians of the 
Greek Church oppressed by the Mahommedans. Alexander, 
while under her influence, had lent his countenance to asecret 
society called the Society of the Hetairists. It had been 
formed ostensibly to alleviate the sufferings of Christians in 
the Ottoman Empire, but it had for its ultimate object the 
deliverance of the Danubian Provinces (Moldavia and 
Wallachia), Servia, and above all, Greece. The Hetairists 
never doubted that they had the full sympathy of the 
Emperor Alexander; and in 1821 an insurrection broke 
out, under their leadership, simultaneously in Wallachia, 
Moldavia, and Greece. In Wallachia it was headed by 
Alexander Ypsilanti, son of one of the former hospodars 


ALEXANDER I. AND MADAME DE KRUDENER, 23 


of that country, and a member of one of the Greek fam- 
ilies resident in Constantinople. The elder Ypsilanti had 
encouraged his Wallachian subjects to revolt against the 
Porte in 1806, and had in consequence been forced to fly 
for his life to St. Petersburg. There his sons entered the 
Russian army. Alexander became a colonel, and aide-de- 
camp to the emperor. 

Alexander Ypsilanti, as leader of the Hetairists, when on 
the top wave of success found himself utterly disavowed by 
the Emperor Alexander, who ordered him to return at once 
to Russia there to receive punishment for a revolutionary 
attempt. 

The fall of Ypsilanti, who was defeated in a battle 
with the Turks, did not prevent a rising in Greece under 
Demetrius, his brother. In vain had the Greeks presented 
their cause before the Congress of Verona; the European 
Powers would only consider their movement revolutionary ; 
they could not see that it was the old struggle of European 
against Asiatic, Christian against Infidel, Western progress 
against stagnant Orientalism. 

Alexander saw well enough that to support the Hetairists 
would be to take the first step upon the march that might 
lead him to Constantinople ; but the more he felt that it was 
to his own interest to take this step, the more his conscience 
bound him to be true to his engagements with the Holy 
Alliance, which made it incumbent upon him to oppose all 
measures that would unsettle the state of Europe as deter- 
mined by the Congress of Vienna. The opportunity was 
therefore missed for settling, while the Powers were upon 
good terms with one another, that Eastern Question which 
has been the plague-spot in Europe for more than sixty 
years. But for the influences which superseded that of 
Madame de Kriidener, and persuaded Alexander to dis- 
countenance his fellow-Christians for conscience’ sake, the 
horrible massacres which swept away nearly one half the 
Christian population of Greece, might have been averted. 

After the emperor had renounced all connection with 


24 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


the designs of Ypsilanti he intimated to Madame de 
Kriidener that her residence in St. Petersburg would only 
be permitted so long as she refrained from any expression 
of opinion as to the affairs of Greece. She left that city, 
therefore, and not long afterwards she died. A few days 
before her death she wrote to her son: “ The good that I 
have done will remain; the harm that I have done, — and 
how often have I not mistaken the workings of my own 
imagination and pride for the voice of God ! — God in His 
mercy will wipe away. I have nothing to offer to God or 
man but my many imperfections; but the blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanseth from all sin.” 

She died on Christmas Day, 1823. Her chief friend in 
her later days was Princess Galitzin, who had been head of 
the Bible Society in Russia, and whose son was the Prince 
Demetrius Galitzin, known among us as the Apostle of the 
Alleghanies. He came out as a Roman Catholic mission- 
ary to Baltimore, and found his field of work among the 
German miners in Pennsylvania and Western Maryland. 
His face was one of almost heavenly benevolence. He 
was a man whose piety and self-devotion may have been 
greater than his intelligence, but he gave up all for Christ’s 
sake, and died among his humble people. 

After parting from Madame de Kriidener, the mind of 
Alexander became tinged with melancholy; he lost his 
activity, and had he lived a few years longer he would 
probably have become a victim to religious melancholia. 
This tendency to religious melancholy seems to have been 
fostered by the people round him. The empress had long 
been in ill health, and was ordered to a warm climate. 
She declared it was unfitting that an empress of Russia 
should seek health out of her own dominions, and resolved 
to go to the Crimea. Thither her husband followed her. 
On the morning that he left St. Petersburg, a solemn 
mass was chanted for him at four o’clock in the morning in 
the Monastery of Saint Alexander Newsky. ‘The service 
used on the occasion was, it is said, the Office for the Dead. 


DE KRUDENER. 


MADAME 


UBRERY wes = 
ORIVENSI!Y GF MURDIS = 
| nena. ia | 


ao 
i: 
& : 
> F 
a oe 8 
‘ar 
" 
Aaa 
7 
a 
4 
=| 
‘ i 1 om | 
an a7 
Ty > 
> ic 
® ne 
a 
* 
me 
* ‘ 
Tee. 
\ 7] 
ae 7 a 
or op 


“~ 


ALEXANDER I, AND MADAME DE KRUDENER. 25 


And after this solemn service the Emperor was invited to 
visit a hermit who slept every night in his coffin. All this 
made a painful impression on his sensitive mind, and had he 
known, as we know now, that at that very moment a plan 
for his assassination was ripening, the effect might have been 
deeper still. He did not, however, live to be assassinated. 
He took a malarial fever at Taganrog, notwithstanding which 
he went on a journey of inspection to Sebastopol, and ex- 
posed himself to the malign influences of that climate, 
which proved so fatal to the French and English troops 
in 1855-1857. He returned to Taganrog, and his last 
hours were embittered by details imparted to him of the 


conspiracy which was to have included his assassination. 
Ere diedabecs 1, 1825. 


OHA Y i eriae 
THE GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE AND JANETTA GRUDZINSKA. 


A» has been said in the previous chapter, the Grand 

Dukes Alexander, Constantine, Nicholas, and Michael 
were the sons of Marie Fedorovna (Princess Dorothy of 
Montbelliard) and of the ill-fated Emperor Paul. When 
Alexander died of malarial fever in the Crimea, his last 
hours were embittered by the discovery of the first Nihilist 
conspiracy, — a plot to assassinate him, — not because he was 
unpopular or accused of any tyranny, but because he was an 
obstacle to that programme of reform which, based upon 
the principle that ‘whatever is, is wrong,” was to begin 
by making a clean sweep of existing institutions, and reduc- 
ing everything to nothing. 

On Alexander’s accession to the Russian throne he had 
endeavored to associate his brother Constantine with him- 
self in the affairs of government. Constantine had in his 
father’s lifetime made a campaign with General Suwarroff. 
At Austerlitz in 1805 he distinguished himself by his rash 
bravery ; and he attended his brother Alexander through 
the campaigns of 1812-1814. After the war was over he 
returned to Russia, and was married to a refined and gentle 
lady, Princess Juliana of Saxe-Coburg, sister of the Duchess 
of Kent, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and of King 
Leopold, aunt both to Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. 
But the eccentricities, the fits of passion, the brutalities, 
and the savagery of Constantine so terrified and alienated 
the poor lady that she refused to live with him, and retired, 
first to Switzerland, and subsequently to her own family at 


CONSTANTINE AND FANETTA GRUDZINSKA. 2/ 


Saxe-Coburg. Complaints of all kinds poured in upon 
Alexander concerning the unbearable brutality of his 
brother’s conduct, and Constantine was dismissed from the 
Russian court to superintend affairs in the new kingdom of 
Poland. 

This kingdom when first restored to Russia, though shorn 
of what had been its proportions in the days of its elected 
kings, had been placed under the care of a provisional 
government, at the head of which was Prince Adam 
Czartoryski, a true patriot, who in youth had been Alex- 
ander’s dearest friend. 


“But,” says a writer in the “ London Quarterly,” “ the czar of 
all the Russias is by birth and training an autocrat. Alexander 
was fast losing, under the imperial purple, the liberal tenden- 
cies of his earlier years. An independently national and liberal 
constitution for Poland was, under such circumstances, fated to 
become a dead letter. The Poles, who had seen the mirage of 
liberty stretch out before their eager eyes, were given over to 
the violent and capricious rule of the emperor’s brother 
Constantine.” 


Yet in Paris in 1814 Constantine had been thrown into 
contact with some of the Polish leaders, and had conceived 
a high esteem for them, showing preference thenceforward 
for the Poles in his personal and private relations over his 
own countrymen. At Warsaw he was head and chief; in 
St. Petersburg his position was secondary and uncom- 
fortable. At the beginning of his career he had exhibited 
his father Paul’s strange fancies concerning military dress 
and drill. It was currently reported at St. Petersburg that 
he had said he hated war because it spoiled his soldiers’ 
uniforms. <A button loose, or boots ill-blacked, or a beard 
a fraction too long, was sufficient under his generalship to 
destroy for life the professional prospects of any officer ; and 
yet he had talent and a quick knowledge of character ; was 
generous and industrious. He was an affectionate son to 
his mother, a kind husband to his last wife, and a good 


28 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


brother; but his fierce explosions of rage, and his general 
eccentricity destroyed the effect of his good qualities. 

His administration in Poland had little to distinguish it. 
It was a field on which his rude and savage character had 
full play, but his private life after his retirement from the 
Russian court is a far more attractive history. Between 
Constantine in public and Constantine in private life there 
were strange contradictions. ‘The two characters seem in- 
consistent, and their reconciliation might form an interesting 
psychological problem. 

At the period when Constantine appeared in Warsaw as 
generalissimo of the troops, and governor-general of the 
kingdom of Poland, there was living in that capital a family 
of good birth but of impaired reputation. Count Grud- 
zinski, who appears to have been a “just man” and even 
a pious one, had been the first husband of a lady, who, 
having with great difficulty procured a divorce from him, 
had married a certain Marshal Broniec, a mere adventurer 
in spite of the rank conferred on him by his boon com- 
panion the King of Saxony. Madame la Maréchale had 
had by her first husband three daughters, whose custody 
she was permitted to retain. The names of these young 
ladies were Janetta, Josephine, and Antoinette. 

These young ladies owed much to their careful training 
under a lady who, although political events had reduced 
her to needy circumstances, moved in the best society of 
Warsaw, where she was greatly esteemed. ‘The fair young 
girls whom she desired to introduce among her friends, 
were pitied, approved, and soon became great favorites. 
The state of affairs in their own household was neither credit- 
able nor comfortable. Count Grudzinski, a devout Catho- 
lic, had refused to lend his name to his wife’s proceedings 
for a divorce, and while the young girls were growing up, 
confusion, intrigue, and great pecuniary distress prevailed. 
Hence it was felt by every one desirable that the three fair 
sisters should marry early and leave their home. Josephine, 
an amiable and beautiful girl, married a distinguished Polish 


CONSTANTINE AND FANETTA GRUDZINSKA. 29 


gentleman. ‘The youngest sister Antoinette, married Gen- 
eral Chlapowski, who was subsequently a leader in the 
Polish revolt of 1830, and dictator of Poland for a brief 
period between the overthrow of the Russian government 
and its terrible restoration. Janetta was not so beautiful 
as her two sisters, but it was said of her that “in all things 
she did she charmed.” Her sweetness of disposition was 
as attractive as her powers of conversation. In 1818 she 
met the Grand Duke Constantine for the first time, and 
the acquaintance soon ripened into love. The courtship 
lasted for more than two years. Constantine was still the 
husband of the Princess Juliana, and in Russia a divorce 
can only be obtained by favor of the emperor, who claims 
to be ex officio the head of all orthodox Christians in his 
dominions. In 1820 Constantine repaired to Saint Peters- 
burg, and made it his earnest request to his brother and 
his mother that he might be divorced from his Saxe-Coburg 
wife, and marry (with the imperial permission) the lady 
whom he loved. 

It cost him tears and prayers and sacrifices to attain this 
end. The divorce was at last given, and the consent 
granted, but a heavy price had to be paid for them. Pre- 
vious to the marriage an imperial ukase was published 
depriving the children of any marriage contracted by any 
member of the imperial house with any lady not belonging 
to a reigning family, of all rights of succession to the throne. 
To this Constantine consented, and also agreed that his 
Polish wife should not be considered a member of the 
imperial family. Besides these conditions, which were 
known to the public, there was a third, kept a profound 
secret, between Constantine, his brother, and their mother. 
Constantine signed and placed in the hands of Alex- 
ander a paper by which he renounced his right of succes- 
sion as heir presumptive to the imperial throne. This 
paper was sealed and deposited by the emperor with the 
president of his Grand Council, only to be opened in case 
of his death, when it was to be read immediately. 


30 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


These conditions having been at last arranged, not with- 
out much difficulty (for Constantine, though willing to 
surrender his own rights, was jealous for those of his wife), 
the imperial lover went back to Warsaw, made his formal 
demand to Count Grudzinski for the hand of his daughter, 
and was married to Janetta. It is not known under what 
influence the bride, as a Catholic, overcame her religious 
scruples. 

A contemporary memoir-writer thus speaks of the wed- 
ding : — 

“The Grand Duke Constantine Paulovitch, brother and heir 
of the emperor, married April 24, 1820, Mademoiselle Janetta 
Grudzinska. For several years there has been talk of his 
attachment, and those who knew him well predicted how it 
would end. ... Mademoiselle Grudzinska immediately after her 
wedding took up her residence in the grand-ducal palace, and 
since then she and the grand duke are seen everywhere to- 
gether. It is considered very surprising that the emperor and 
his mother should have given their consent to this marriage. 
It is said that the grand duke, when last at St. Petersburg, 
wept three days at their feet imploring their permission. Janetta 
has no title as yet, but it is said the emperor intends to give 
her one. This subject is the theme of conversation in all circles. 
Many ladies envy Janetta, but I pity her.” 


The marriage on the whole was not unhappy, though the 
bride soon found herself assailed by annoyances, many of 
them caused by the insatiable demands of some greedy 
members of her family. Janetta seems most sincerely to 
have loved her husband, but from the first he forbade her 
interference in public affairs, and warned her never to 
intercede with him on behalf of her countrymen. If she 
had hoped to stand the friend of Poland, and to assuage 
the miseries of her own people, she soon found that no 
influence on such subjects was allowed her. 

The emperor created her Princess of Lowicz, and pre- 
sented to his .brother large estates that bore that name. 
These were settled on the prospective children of the 
marriage ; but no children came. By degrees the princess 


CONSTANTINE AND FANETTA GRUDZINSKA. 31 


adapted herself to her anomalous position. She overlooked 
much, she forgot much. She could “suffer and be still.” 
But though denied all political influence, her influence was 
great over the semi-barbarian who was her husband. In 
her society and under the spell of her affection he became 
calmer and more refined. He always spoke of her as his 
home angel. Though forced to be deaf to innumerable 
demands for honors and money which harassed her con- 
tinually, her correspondence with her mother and sisters 
was most loving. Never did a family féte day or a birth- 
day pass forgotten. ‘To her family she wrote only of her 
happiness, of her husband’s attention to her, the kindness 
she received, or the embarrassments she felt when she 
found herself treated with more distinction than her rank 
gave her a claim to; yet on April 3, 1821, almost the 
anniversary of her marriage, she could write thus to a friend 
of her girlhood :— 


“My surroundings are charming; I find all sorts of pleasant 
things in my home, all kinds of advantages. But this is only of 
late. At first it appeared to me all gloomy and sad, and its 
luxury was unbearable. . . . I have suffered very, very much. 
It seems to me that I never had so many trials in my life as 
during this year. Butall that is over now, and I am completely 
happy. . . . After some months of married life people know 
each other far better, as you know, than they can possibly do 
before marriage. One has to bear, and forbear, and make mu- 
tual concessions. I am doing so, and begin to feel happy. 
You will understand that this letter is only for you and your 
mother.” 


Notwithstanding the conditions on which the emperor 
and the empress-mother insisted before they would consent 
to the grand duke’s marriage, the relations of the princess 
with the emperor and the court were always friendly. 
When Alexander came to Warsaw, soon after his brother’s 
marriage, he gained golden opinions even from the reluc- 
tant Poles. The Princess of Lowicz felt the attractions of 
his character, and always spoke of him with enthusiasm. 


32 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


For three years and a half after this the princess led a 
quiet life at Belvidere, — a palace which, although almost a 
country seat, stood within the limits of Warsaw. Her health 
was not good ; but time and her husband’s tender solicitude 
for her in her weakness drew them more closely together. 
Besides this, she had the good opinion of the Czar and the 
affection of the whole imperial family, — more particularly 
that of the Grand Duke Michael, and his sisters, the Grand 
Duchesses Anne and Marie. 

A few days before Christmas, 1825, the Emperor 
Alexander breathed his last. Up to the end he per- 
sistently refused to be thought ill, or to omit the duties 
of his station. 

The Grand Duke Nicholas, who was residing in St. 
Petersburg, immediately on receipt of the news of Alex- 
ander’s death took the oath of allegiance to Constantine, 
bis elder brother. He then despatched two couriers to 
Warsaw to inform Constantine that he was now emperor. 
Strange to say, both couriers died upon the road, and the 
news was brought to Warsaw by an aide-de-camp of the 
Grand Duke Nicholas, who was charged to present to 
the new emperor the respectful homage of his brother. 

Before, however, this officer was despatched from St. 
Petersburg, the army as well as Nicholas had sworn alle- 
giance to Constantine. No sooner had they done so than 
the president of the Council produced the letter that the 
Emperor Alexander had confided to his keeping. It con- 
ferred the imperial crown on Nicholas, and enclosed a 
letter from Constantine confirming and sanctioning this 
arrangement. 

In spite of the production of this document, Nicholas 
persisted in despatching his aide-de-camp to Warsaw to 
assure his brother of his loyalty and submission. 

The effect produced at Belvidere by the arrival of this 
messenger was very great. Some say that Constantine 
fainted on hearing of the death of Alexander. It is certain 
that he at once shut himself up alone in a state of great 


CONSTANTINE AND FANETTA GRUDZINSKA. 33 


excitement. Even the princess was not suffered to come 
near him. At a distance she stood with clasped hands 
where he might see her from his window. At the end of 
two hours he came forth self-collected and calm, though all 
the furniture in his room had, during his transport, been 
broken in pieces. His first words were to the princess, — 
an assurance that she might make her mind easy, for he was 
not going to reign. 

He at once despatched his youngest brother, Michael, to 
Nicholas, confirming his resignation of the throne; and 
Nicholas, when with energy he had thoroughly crushed 
the projected insurrection of the Nihilists, made prepara- 
tions for his coronation. But Constantine was still popular 
with the party of Old Russia, —the party that loved long 
beards and the national costumes; and Nicholas was 
anxious that his subjects should receive some _ personal 
assurance that he was to be crowned czar with the full 
consent of his deposed brother. He therefore urged 
Constantine to be present at his coronation. Constan- 
tine returned no answer; but on the eve of the day 
appointed he drove into Moscow in a travelling-carriage 
attended by a single aide-de-camp. Nicholas, grateful and 
delighted, hastened to welcome him; but his surprise and 
embarrassment were great when Constantine announced 
that he only meant to stay one night, and should set out on 
his return the next day after the conclusion of the cere- 
mony. It had to be explained to him, with fear and 
trembling, that there had been some delay in the prepara- 
tions, and that the coronation could not take place for a 
week. With some grumbling at the delay, Constantine 
consented to remain till after the ceremony. His native 
ferocity, aggravated by the excitement of the occasion, 
kept the new Czar Nicholas all that week in a state of great 
uneasiness ; and it is not quite certain what thoughts were 
stirring in the heart of the elder brother; but not many 
_ hours before the coronation took place Constantine became 
aware that in the preparations for the ceremonial every- 

3 


34 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


thing had been arranged so as to do him honor. This 
seemed to produce in him the effect of a sudden revela- 
tion. ‘That afternoon, at a review, he abruptly placed him- 
self at the head of his own regiment, and advancing to 
where the emperor sat on horseback at the far end of the 
great court of the Kremlin, he raised his hand in military 
salute to him as his superior. ‘The emperor seized him by 
the arm. Constantine bent forward, and kissed the hand 
of his brother. ‘The emperor flung himself upon his neck, 
and they embraced in a transport of brotherly affection. 
Next day the Grand Duke Constantine refused to place 
himself upon the throne that had been prepared for him at 
the coronation, but took his place simply as a grand duke 
of the imperial family by the side of his brother Michael. 
The following morning, in spite of the earnest remonstrances 
of the emperor, he started back to Poland. 

He returned to his home, to the Polish army he was en- 
deavoring to discipline after the Western fashion, and to the 
wife who loved the wild nature she had subdued. ‘That he 
was unpopular made her love him with more wifely devo- 
tion; and in truth he must have had some qualities well 
worthy of her love. 

Here are parts of two letters written by him to his wife’s 
mother : — 


“My affection for my dear wife increases daily; for she is the 
source of all my happiness, and my sole aim is to try to make 
her happy and content. Thank God, her health is improved, 
and she is ever that sweet and charming Janetta whom you 
have always known.” 


And again, — 


“Thanks to our excellent Janetta, I enjoy a happiness in my 
home I had never dreamed of, and I pray God it may continue 
until death.” 


But events in Poland were in preparation for a crisis. 
In 1830-1831 all Europe was enveloped in clouds and. 
darkness, and the treaties of Vienna, then shattered by the 


CONSTANTINE AND FANETTA GRUDZINSKA. 35 


shock of revolution, were in another generation to be swept 
away. Revolutionary fires had been smouldering through- 
out Europe ever since the Spanish Revolution of 1821. In 
Poland as in Italy there were secret societies which kept up 
fermentation beneath the social surface. 


** Towards the close of 1830 the exasperated Poles broke out 
into open insurrection. A great wave of hope swept over the 
whole nation, which rose to vindicate its right to national exist- 
ence and liberty with overmastering purpose, and at first with 
signal success. But alas! Poland had against her her internal 
feuds, the overwhelming superiority of the Russian army, and 
the absence of any support from foreign nations,” } 


The wrath of the Czar Nicholas at the success of the 
revolution of July, 1830, in France, which terminated in the 
triumph of the dourgeoiste and the elevation of Louis 
Philippe to the throne, went almost beyond the bounds of 
reason. Not only had it destroyed his hopes, and broken 
up his plans, but it had attracted the sympathies of all 
unquiet spirits. He at once mobilized the Russian army, 
that it might be ready to advance on revolutionary France. 
And this demonstration of animosity against France caused 
the latent spirit of disaffection in Poland to blaze out into 
activity. On the night of Nov. 29, 1830, a party of young 
men began a movement which at first, for a few hours, 
seemed to fail of success, but by daylight, owing to a 
variety of circumstances, had become a temporary victory. 

Eighteen of the conspirators made their way to the 
palace of Belvidere, the residence of the Grand Duke 
Constantine. They entered it without opposition while 
all within it lay asleep, and in apparent security. They 
murdered two of the grand duke’s gentlemen in cold 
blood, and made their way into his chamber. He had 
been awakened by his valet. He sprang out of bed, flung 
a cloak over his night-clothes, and rushed down a narrow 
stairway to his wife’s apartments. There he found the 
greatest confusion. ‘The court ladies had all left their beds, 


1 London Quarterly Review, 1890. 


36 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


and were assembled in the salon. The princess made 
them fall upon their knees around her husband, and pray 
aloud for his safety. Unhappily, Constantine had wholly 
lost his self-possession, and though a soldier brave to rash- 
ness in his early career, he now trembled with terror. The 
eighteen conspirators, after searching his apartments, re- 
tired in haste, murdering General Gendre, his chief coun- 
sellor on their way. They had not gone a hundred yards 
from the palace when a party of Polish horsemen galloped 
up to the rescue. Why the little band of conspirators was 
not annihilated, it is hard to say; but by this time the 
insurrection had spread among the populace of Warsaw. 
Polish soldiers were fraternizing with the instigators of the 
movement; and of all the grand duke’s army there re- 
mained faithful to him only four regiments of cavalry. 

Had he put himself at once at the head of these four 
regiments he might have won a victory, but he seemed 
dazed by the events of the night. He trembled like a leaf, 
and wandered aimlessly among his troops, a prey to 
despair, which seemed to have stupefied him. He and his 
wife retired before the fury of the storm, and sought shelter 
at Wiezbno. There for some days they lived in the poor 
hut of a gardener, destitute of comforts of every kind. 
The princess showed courage and capacity in this emer- 
gency, but she could not always restrain her feelings. 

The leader chosen by the insurgents was General 
Chlapowski, and one of his titles to their confidence was 
that he was known to harbor strong resentment against the 
grand duke for an insult publicly put upon him in 1818. 
Yet since that time he had married Antoinette Grudzinska, 
the Princess of Lowicz’s favorite sister, and the princess 
had favored the match in spite of their mother’s opposition. 

Chlapowski deemed it his duty as a patriot to endeavor 
to negotiate with the grand duke before proceeding to 
extremities. The negotiation came to nothing, and it lost 
him the confidence of his countrymen. But as the depu- 
tation sent by him to confer with the grand duke was 


CONSTANTINE AND FANETTA GRUDZINSKA. 37 


leaving the camp where Constantine had succeeded in 
assembling eight thousand men, it was followed by a large 
part of the hitherto faithful Polish cavalry. There was 
nothing left for Constantine but flight, and Chlapowski, to 
the great indignation of his countrymen, took no pains to 
pursue him. 

Not long after this the Polish Revolution lost all prospect 
of success, though the struggle was continued a few months 
longer. ‘The Czar hurried his army, already mobilized, to 
the scene of insurrection. The general in command was 
Diebitsch, who had won his laurels in 1826 in the Turkish 
war. He advanced upon Warsaw, but with him came the 
cholera. The Poles won a battle, but the soldiers who had 
fought hand to hand with Russians were stricken down by 
sickness almost on the field of battle. The fever of men’s 
minds, and the absence of all sanitary precautions, made 
the plague horrible in Warsaw; nevertheless the war went 
on. Step by step Diebitsch advanced, but early in January, 
1831, the Poles gained an important victory. Diebitsch 
retreated to his camp, and in his despair and self-abandon- 
ment gave himself up to drunkenness. It was thus that a 
messenger from the czar met him, and presented him his 
dismission. The next day Diebitsch was seized with 
cholera and died. The messenger passed on to Minsk to 
carry dispatches to the Grand Duke Constantine. The 
day after their interview the grand duke also died of 
cholera. He was fifty-three years of age. 

His widow retired to St. Petersburg. On her way she 


wrote thus to her mother: — 
AUGUST 2, 1831. 


DEAR MAmma,— Your daughter is very, very miserable. 
She has lost him for whom she lived, and now she is alone, with- 
out husband, friend, or protector. O mother! you can never 
know the grief this parting has caused me. 


In the middle of September a few words written in a 
trembling hand close the records in her journal : — 


“T am very ill, and have received the last sacraments.” 
y lil, 


38 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Yet she lingered a few weeks longer. She was watched 
over with affectionate solicitude by the imperial family. 
She had a presentiment that she would die upon the anni- 
versary of the dreadful night when, roused from sleep, she 
fled with her husband from their home at Belvidere. The 
Emperor Nicholas, with kind consideration, had the dates 
changed in the little calendar she always used, in order to 
mislead her; but in vain. She died on November 29, 1831, 
exactly one year after the attack on the palace of her 
husband. | 

She was buried in the Roman Catholic Chapel built by 
Alexander I. at Tzarskoé-Sélo near St. Petersburg, and the 
court wore mourning for her for two weeks.? 

“Many tears,” says a French writer often hostile to 
emperors and kings, “were shed upon the tomb of this 
Polish lady, so fair, so tender, and so faithful. Her own 
conjugal devotion, and the beneficent influences of her love 
upon the character of her husband were no secrets to any 
one. The Grand Duke Constantine, though fierce in tem- 
per, and generous by impulse, gave up a throne to win her, 
and having won her, he showed her during the remainder 
of his life the submission of a child and the devotion of a 
knight of romance in the days of chivalry.” 

At one time there had been brief hopes that England, 
France, Austria, and the new Catholic kingdom of Belgium 
might intervene in favor of Poland, but the diplomatic 
desire to keep Europe out of a general war if possible, 
caused all projects of that kind to fall to the ground. 

In nine months there were several different forms of 
government in Warsaw. After the night of Nov. 29, 1830, 
when Warsaw was ina ferment of joy and of enthusiasm, 
Chlapowski? was the popular favorite and was made head 

1 This account of the Grand Duke Constantine and of Janetta 
Grudzinska has, by the kind permission of the editors of the “Cath- 
olic World,” been almost entirely copied from an article I wrote for 
that periodical in Oct. 1888. My material was then drawn chiefly from 


the ‘Revue Britannique” in March of the same year. — E. W. L- 
2 Spelled by some writers Chlopicki. 


CONSTANTINE AND ANETTA GRUDZINSKA. 39 


of the government by acclamation. Then came a new 
provisional government by an Administrative Council, at the 
head of which was Prince Adam Czartoryski; this Counci! 
was arbitrarily set aside by Chlapowski not long after, when 
he constituted himself dictator. Eventually he retired, like 
Prince Adam Czartoryski, into the ranks of the army. But 
the lack of some strong man of authority and experience 
at the head of the government, and as chief commander of 
the army, led to terrible disorders in Warsaw at a time 
when all patriots should have been united for the common 
good. Warsaw became the scene of the wildest confusion. 
The plague was raging, yet bands of excited revolutionists 
rushed through the streets demanding the decapitation of 
traitors. Still there was energy of a certain kind. A “vee 
en masse was Called for throughout the country. Priests 
shouldered the crucifix, boys and old men armed them- 
selves, the peasants left their harvests and rushed to battle 
with their scythes. 

Marshal Paskievitch had been appointed to succeed 
Marshal Diebitsch, and with fresh masses of troops from 
the interior of Russia was advancing step by step on 
Warsaw, to crush the revolution by one stunning blow. 

On August 15, the birthday of Napoleon, all Warsaw was 
celebrating his memory. He had behaved perhaps more 
ill to the Poles than to any other nation, their want of 
frontier having withheld him from forming Poland into an 
independent kingdom. Nevertheless the whole country 
revered his memory. His friendship might not have been 
worth much to the Poles, but he had been the only sovereign 
who had ever showed them active sympathy. News that 
day was brought in that the Russians were advancing on 
_ the doomed city. Under cover of this rumor, a rising was 
made to depose Chlapowski in favor of a man of no 
experience named Krukoviecki. He incited his followers 
to burst the prison doors and massacre the Russian prison- 
ers. He was proclaimed Governor of Warsaw and removed 
at once Dembinski (the only general of ability left since 


40 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


the retirement of Skrzynecki) from command of the 
army. 

Three weeks later the Russians attacked Warsaw and 
gained important advantages. Marshal Paskievitch had the 
Grand Duke Michael with his army. On September 6 
Governor Krukoviecki went out to treat with the Russian 
commanders. The terms proposed were amnesty on the 
one part, complete submission on the other. Till one 
o’clock the Russians offered to delay their attack upon the 
city, in order to enable the Polish Diet to accept or to reject 
these conditions. One o’clock struck and nothing had 
been decided. A quarter of an hour later a Russian cannon 
gave the signal for assault. By nine o’clock Warsaw was in 
flames, and its inhabitants had capitulated. ‘The Governor 
made no conditions. He threw himself and his country, 
he said, ‘on the paternal heart of the Czar.” 

But such a submission was rejected by the distracted 
inhabitants. They seized their Governor, and refused to 
let him sign the ratification. The disorderly remnant of a 
Polish government marched out of one gate while the 
Russians were entering Warsaw by another. 

Generals Dembinski and Rybinski rallied what remained 
of the Polish army, and pushed their way into Prussia, 
where they, and all the men with them, were put under 
arrest. 

Paskievitch, the victorious general, gave his soldiers 
license to commit all sorts of horrors. Murder, sack, and 
pillage followed his entrance into the revolted city. Then 
he sat down and wrote his celebrated despatch, beginning : 
“Order reigns in Warsaw.” 

The sympathy, the fury, the distress, this outcome of the 
Polish revolution caused in France would be difficult to 
describe. One of the Parisian papers published a few 
verses which roused the masses to a high pitch of sorrow- 
ful enthusiasm : — 


“ Brave heart! Brave Warsaw! ’T was for us she died — 
Died gun in hand, unbending in her pride ; 


GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSHIY OF ILLENOIS 
URBANA — 


27> 


CONSTANTINE AND FANETTA GRUDZINSKA. 41 


Died for fair France; died with unhumbled knee, 
Died, weeping o’er our Bird of Victory! 

Died with our cry of pity yet unheard; 

Without one fond adieu, one loving word! 

Where shall we hide henceforth dishonored lives? 
Quick ! snatch the distaff from our braver wives! 
Fling down our muskets, furl our flags so gay, 

Tear off militia plumes, fling belts away! 

By fits and starts French courage comes and goes ; 
Boast we no more of victory o’er our foes ; 

Let the red shame mount up— Hark! hear the drum! 
You wish to see the Russians? Here they come!” 


Yet as we look back upon this sad, sad story, we feel that 
it was the Poles’ own want of cohesion and of great men 
to guide their councils, and to lead their armies, that led to 
such a disastrous termination of the Polish revolution. Had 
Europe intervened far better terms might have been made 
for the brave unhappy kingdom, but it seemed unlikely 
that Poland in any event could have secured permanently 
her separation from Russia. Freedom did not “shriek ” 
this time when Poland fell, but rather mourned over the 
disorders committed in her name, while Pity shed tears 
over the victims of the struggle. 


1 Louis Blanc, Dix Ans. 


CHAPTERSIL 
THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 


[By way of preface to our story of the Turkish Empire 
3 during the nineteenth century, it may be well to glance 
back at the settlement of the Turks in Europe five centu- 
ties before. The Eastern Question indeed can hardly be 
comprehended without this retrospect. 

Looking at a map of Europe made in the last century 
we are astonished at the extent of the Turkish power. 
Besides the narrow strip of land we now call Turkey in 
Europe, the Turkish sultan in 1755 (at the time, let us 
say, of Braddock’s defeat) ruled over Greece, Thessaly, 
the Islands of the Archipelago, Crete, Cyprus, the Ionian 
Isles, Bulgaria, Bosnia,’ Herzegovina, Servia, Moldavia, 
Wallachia, Bessarabia, the Ukraine, and the Crimea. His 
frontier on the north touched Poland. His dominions were 
wedged in between Hungary and Russia, and, leaving out 
of account his provinces in Asia, he ruled as suzerain over 
all the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. 

Since then the sultan has been stripped of all these vast 
possessions (except the Islands of the Archipelago and 
Crete) and it may be well to see how he acquired them. 
Subsequent chapters, relating more particularly to the nine- 
teenth century will tell how one by one they have been shorn 
away. 

All educated persons are vaguely aware that the Turks, 
like every other fierce and migratory horde, came from the 
sun-rising, and had their origin at the foot of the Altai 
Mountains. The earliest mention of them is supposed to 
be found in Genesis, where Togarmak (assumed by anti- 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 43 


quarians to have been their ancestor) is enumerated among 
the grandsons of Japhet, —a circumstance which gives, it 
would seem, to their introduction into the European family 
the very earliest date, and cuts the ground beneath the 
modern argument that Turks, as Asiatics, have no business 
to be upon the soil of Europe at. all. 

In Ezekiel “those of the house of Togarmak” are men- 
tioned as great traders in “horses and mules ;” and in the 
final destruction of Gog out of the land of Magog (Gog 
being a Russian prince, according to the Septuagint) the 
house of Togarmak out of the north quarter, with all its 
bands, is in alliance with Jews, Persians, Ethiopians, and 
the inhabitants of the North African coast, against the 
common enemy. 

Be all this as it may, we know very little concerning the 
Turks until about five hundred and fifty years after the Chris- 
tian era. They were then settled on the frontier of China. 
They inhabited walled towns, were extensively engaged in 
commerce, and lived under the protection of just laws. 
Their leader in the latter days of the Roman Empire sent 
an embassy to the Emperor Justinian. ‘This Turkish chief 
is believed to have been the son of Toumen the Blacksmith ; 
for the race was already advanced in manufactures, and ‘in 
the working of iron. ‘Toumen was the founder of the first 
great Turkish Empire. Under him his people rose in re- 
bellion against the Avars, a mixed Mongolian race, and his 
dominions are believed to have extended across the conti- 
nent of Asia, from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific. 

The son of Toumen was a rude barbarian, but a sovereign 
alive to the importance of a balance of power, and the ties 
of commercial intercourse. He had instructed his ambass- 
adors to procure him, if possible, the silk trade of Europe, 
and to form an alliance with the Byzantine emperor against 
their common enemy, the Persians. 

During the prosperous years of the mighty power of Rome 
the commerce of the West with India, which was carried in 
fleets down the Red Sea, struck Pliny with astonishment. 


44. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


After the reign of Justinian the disorders in the empire of 
the East, caused this great traffic rapidly to decline. War, 
piracy and devastation, depopulation, and destruction of 
property soon left the eastern coast of the Red Sea as 
desolate and unproductive as we find it now; and the well- 
governed dominions of the Turkish khan opened a surer 
highway to India and the Spice Islands. 

Two centuries later, from causes now unknown to us, the 
eastern provinces of the Turkish khan became subject to 
China, while the west fell under the dominion of the Sara- 
cens; but even in adversity the Turks soon became masters 
of the situation. They embraced Mahommedanism, and 
the Saracen caliph, admiring the bravery and hardiness of 
the Turkish troops, formed them into his body-guard. By 
the eleventh century these soldiers, called Mamlouks, had 
become masters of the Caliphat, and being joined by a tribe 
of their own blood, — fresh from the cradle of their race, 
and commanded by the all-conquering Togul Beg,— they 
proceeded to conquer western Asia, and to accelerate the 
decline and fall of all that was left of the great eastern 
division of the Roman Empire. 

The habits of the new invaders, who are called the Seljouk 
Turks in memory of Seljouk the father of Togul Beg, were 
neither commercial, agricultural, nor manufacturing, like 
those of the tribe which founded the first Turkish Empire. 
Wherever they came “the verdure,” says a contemporary 
writer, “fled from the bloody sod.” Where they pitched 
their tents, orchards, and fertile fields disappeared for a 
day’s journey round their encampments ; and still, in wan- 
dering through Asia Minor, we are told that travellers “come 
unexpectedly on districts fertile as the plains of Poland or 
Moldavia, on which wheat never grows, but which the page 
of history informs us were inhabited by an industrious 
agricultural population until the towns were destroyed and 
the people exterminated by the generals of Alp Arslan (the 
successor of ‘Togul Beg) and Malek Shah.” 

This mighty Turkish Empire of Alp Arslan was soon 


ZHE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 45 


divided into three secondary kingdoms: Roum, near the 
Black Sea,— which took its name (as Roumania has since 
done) from Rome,— Syria, and Persia. 

About 1270, when Saint Louis flung his noble life away 
upon the sands of Barbary, when Dante was a little boy in 
Florence, while Guelphs and Ghibellines were distracting 
hapless Italy, and while Michael Paleologos, a clever and 
ambitious soldier, having freed Constantinople from the 
temporary dominion of the Latins, was establishing himself 
on the Byzantine throne, —there entered the kingdom of 
Roum, through the defiles of the mountains of Armenia, 
about four hundred families, forming a small tribe, led by a 
gallant chief of Turkish race. Hehadason called Othman, 
whose name has been perpetuated in that of the great 
Ottoman Empire. Othman’s fame for judgment and for 
justice became very great. One celebrated decision of his 
in favor of a Greek Christian, and against a nobleman of 
his own race, extended his renown, and added importance 
to his government. He never, however, became more than 
the emir of a province, though, according to a Turkish 
tradition, a vision, the particulars of which every Turk learns 
in his childhood, was early vouchsafed to him. In it he 
beheld his family the masters of Constantinople ; “ which,” 
says the Oriental who relates this legend, ‘is placed at the 
junction of two seas, and of two continents, resembling a 
noble diamond set between two sapphire stones and two 
emeralds.” Before Othman died, his great son Orkhan, 
in 1325, had conquered Brusa in Anatolia from the Greeks, 
and laid the foundation of the Ottoman Empire. 

The power of Orkhan differed from that of every other 
conqueror. It was not based on nationality, for even the 
four hundred families who had followed his father into 
Armenia, and thence into the dominions of the Greek 
Empire, had never become a distinct tribe. 

“The Ottoman Empire threatened Europe with conquest ; 
- Ottoman armies were well nigh invincible; the Ottoman 
government was an intelligent despotism, superior to any 


46 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


contemporary government; but during the period of Otto- 
man greatness there never was such a thing as an Ottoman 
nation.” Five centuries of Ottoman power in Europe rest 
solely on the sagacity and foresight of Orkhan, son of Oth- 
man and the princes of his family. When the life that they 
infused into that empire of “all nations and languages” 
was drained out of the body politic by an alteration in the 
traditions of its government, and the suppression of the 
Janissaries, that final sickness soon set in of which we 
ourselves may possibly witness the last convulsive throes. 

The troops of Othman ‘had been irregular horsemen. 
His son Orkhan attempted the formation of a body of in- 
fantry. He found his followers, however, so rude and 
insubordinate that the idea occurred to him of educating 
his troops under his own eye, of literally forming a nursery 
of soldiers in his household, of owning an army of well- 
educated slaves. ‘To this end he imposed a forced tribute 
of male children on every Christian district that he con- 
quered. ‘This tribute was exacted until 1685, when it was 
finally abolished. These tribute children all became mem- 
bers of the sultan’s household. ‘They lost all ties of race, 
of faith, of family, — their sole law was their master’s will. 
They were ready to defend him against every enemy. 
Like faithful animals they looked only to the hand that fed 
them. They formed the celebrated corps of Janissaries, 
first planned by Orkhan, fully organized by his son after 
him, and abolished by massacre, after vain efforts for their 
reform, in 1826, a date which falls within this history of the 
nineteenth century. 

With this corps Amurath, the successor of Orkhan, sub- 
dued nearly the whole of the present Turkey in Europe, 
leaving the Greek emperor little more than his capital. 
He then marched against those provinces, Wallachia, 
Servia, and Bulgaria, whose shores are washed by the 
Danube, and everywhere he went he demanded contri- 
butions of male children. By the laws of the Koran, to 
the victor belonged the f/th part of all the property of the 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. Av 


conquered. ‘This was interpreted to include a fifth part 
of the population. The conqueror compounded for male 
children, seven or eight years of age. ‘‘ Let them be called 
Janissaries,” said a dervish, who, with great ceremony, gave 
them his blessing, — “ Yemz-sheri, or new soldiers! May 
their countenances .be always bright, their hands victo- 
rious, their swords keen!” 

Strange to say, this horrible tribute does not at first 
appear to have been intolerable to the Greek Christians. 
Whether they accepted the fortune of war and were thank- 
ful to have universal servitude compounded by such a 
sacrifice, or whether, their country being laid desolate, they 
were willing to see their children secured against the horrors 
of starvation, we do not know; but, as a modern writer 
says, “had the Greek Christians and the heads of the 
Greek Church given these very children as good an educa- 
cation as Orkhan gave them as his slaves, all Europe might 
have been spared the Turkish question.” 

The boys who were the victims of this tribute, were col- 
lected once in five years, by officers deputed for the pur- 
pose. ‘Their numbers were also increased by children taken 
in war, and presented to the sultan by his generals and 
pashas, so that, besides Greeks, Albanians, Servians, Bul- 
garians, Bosnians, Moldavians, and Wallachians, the corps 
frequently included Poles, Bohemians, Russians, Germans, 
and Italians. These were at first lodged in the Sultan’s 
palace, and the first step was to instruct them in the 
Mahommedan religion. So carefully was this done that 
while devotion to the Sultan was their duty, devotion to 
their Prophet became their sole enthusiasm. During the 
first stage of their education the disposition and mental 
capacity of each was carefully studied. They then entered 
on a course of general instruction interspersed with severe 
bodily toil. At length they were divided into several 
classes. Those who had-been chiefly trained to bodily 
endurance became Janissaries; those who were believed 
capable of higher things were educated to fill posts in the 


48 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


administration of the government, with the prospect of 
being advanced to the highest offices of state. From 1453 
to 1617 out of forty-eight grand viziers, thirty were either 
renegades or the children of Christian parents, brought up 
in the Mahommedan religion; four only were of Ottoman 
or Seljouk families ; the other fourteen, who had been born 
Mussulmans, were not of Turkish race. 

The discipline of both classes of boys was extremely 
severe. Those destined to be Janissaries were inured to 
every kind of bodily privation. They were employed in 
military exercises during the day, and at night they slept 
in a long lighted hall, with an overseer walking up and 
down to see that no one stirred. The higher class, des- 
tined to be men of the pen, were separated from the rest, 
but were kept no less strictly. At the end of three years of 
training in the “higher education,” they had the choice 
either to remain and ascend in the civil service of their 
master, or to enter into one of the first four corps of sfahzs, 
the immediate body-guard of the Sultan. 

A kulah, or cap of dingy white felt, of which a strip 
hung down behind, while the front was adorned by a tuft 
of heron’s-feathers, was the distinguishing mark of a Janis- 
sary. <A fire-lock, a pistol, a mace, a scimitar, and an axe 
were his equipments, and he prided himself, not only on 
the temper of his weapons, but upon their elaborate 
ornamentation. 

Besides the standards and horse-tails planted before the 
tent door of their commander, each regiment had the 
caldron in which the soldiers made their soup carried 
before it on parade or in battle. The loss of its caldron 
was the greatest misfortune that could befall a regiment ; 
and on the rare occasions when they were taken in battle, 
all the officers were cashiered, and the regiment publicly 
disgraced. 

After the power of the sultans began to decline, the pride 
and insubordination of the Janissaries became intolerable. 
As Lady Mary Wortley Montagu says, writing from Turkey 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 49 


> 


to Mr. Alexander Pope in 1717, during her husband’s 
embassy to Constantinople: ‘These troops have an abso- 
lute authority here, and their conduct carries much more 
the aspect of rebellion than the appearance of subordi- 
nation. ‘They are commanded by a Pasha Seraskier (that 
is, General), though the last expression is hardly just, for, to 
say truth, the pasha is commanded by the Janissaries.” 

For several generations the Ottoman sultans, who were 
educated in much the same manner as their tribute children, 
were even more remarkable for their sagacity, liberality, and 
occasional generosity, than for their talents and success. 

While Orkhan pursued his conquests in Asia Minor, some 
of his emirs fitted out ships, and proceeded to plunder 
the Greek islands and the coasts of the Morea. One of 
them indeed became a model pirate, the chivalrous pro- 
tector of a Greek empress and her family, the friend and 
sworn brother in arms of her husband, the Emperor John 
Cantacuzene. His propensities for plunder were, however, 
ineradicable. Notwithstanding his “thousand virtues,” his 
name is linked in history with some fatal advice he gave on 
his deathbed to the Greek emperor. He exhorted his 
friend to cultivate an alliance with Orkhan. 

The Greek Empire was distracted at that time (about the 
middle of the fourteenth century) by quarrels between the 
Paleologi and the Cantacuzeni. Indeed there were then 
two emperors and three empresses at Constantinople dis- 
puting with each other the Byzantine throne, and this at a 
time when a young prince of one of their houses was driven 
to exclaim: “ Alexander complained that his father would 
leave him nothing to conquer; my predecessors will soon 
leave me nothing to lose.” 

Before, however, any arrangement had been entered into 
for the accommodation of the five personages who, in 
1347, agreed to share the Byzantine throne, the flames of 
civil discord had been raging for six years throughout the 
Greek Empire, and the Bulgarians, Servians, and Turks 
were invited by the several parties to the quarrel to take 

4 


5O RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIX'H CENTURY, 


sides in their disputes. The advice and influence of Can- 
tacuzene’s buccaneering friend seems to have turned the 
scale. Orkhan proffered Cantacuzene his alliance, and 
Cantacuzene accepted it, even listening to a proposal that 
he would give Orkhan his daughter Theodora in marriage ; 
on which condition alone Orkhan promised to fulfil toward 
him the duties of a subject and a son. It was stipulated 
that Theodora should continue in the exercise of her own 
religion, and the marriage took place with great magnifi- 
cence, but with no religious ceremonies, on the shores of 
the Hellespont. Theodora’s life, though led thenceforth in 
a harem, was one of devotion and charity. 

Orkhan, in spite of his marriage with a Christian lady, 
insisted on receiving permission to expose his Christian 
captives for sale in the markets of Constantinople. Such 
scenes, and the unnatural marriage of a princess of the 
reigning family, assisted further to disorganize what re- 
mained of the Greek empire. In 1341 (that is, ten years 
after the death of Robert Bruce, and five years before 
the battle of Cressy) John Cantacuzene abdicated. His 
last advice to his countrymen was ‘to decline rash con- 
tests with the Turks, and to compare their own weakness 
with the hardihood and valor displayed by that great peo- 
ple.’ He then retired into one of the monasteries of 
Mount Athos, and took no further part in public affairs, 
except to urge a union of the Eastern and Western churches, 
a union which at that time there was some probability of 
seeing accomplished, under the auspices of the pope at 
Avignon. 

The Emperor John Palsologos, pupil and successor of 
John Cantacuzene, was the son of a princess of Savoy 
who had refused the hand of Charles le Bel of France, and 
had married the Greek emperor. She brought her son up 
with a prepossession in favor of the Roman Church, and 
partly from conviction, partly from the hope of foreign 
sympathy and foreign aid, he offered to bring back his 
church and people to the Catholic fold. To this end he 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 51 


made a visit to the West, but was not successful. As he 
was returning home he was made prisoner by the Venetians, 
to whom he already owed large sums of money. His sec- 
ond son, Manuel, on hearing this, at once sold or mort- 
gaged all he possessed, embarked for Venice, ransomed 
his father, and pledged his own freedom as security for 
what remained unpaid of the previous debt. 

But present or absent in his dominions, John Palzologos 
had neither the vigor nor the capacity needed to protect 
the Eastern Empire, and during his reign the Turks made 
rapid conquests. 

Soliman, the gallant eldest son of Orkhan, was killed by 
a fall from his horse while throwing the zerveed, and Orkhan 
died of grief for the loss of so valiant a son. He was suc- 
ceeded by his second son, called Murad by the Turks, and 
Amurath by Christians. Amurath perfected the discipline 
of the Janissaries, captured Adrianople (a city only one 
hundred and twenty miles distant from Constantinople) and 
made it the capital of his empire. This conquest roused 
some spirit among the Latin Christians of the East, though 
it was very quietly submitted to by those of the Greek 
communion. The Servians, Hungarians, and Wallachians, 
who were Catholics, in obedience to a mandate from Pope 
Urban V., combined théir forces to drive the Turks back 
into Asia. ‘They were surprised in their camp, however, 
and completely defeated. 

John Palzologos made no effort to recover Adrianople, 
the second city of his empire; he even sought the friend- 
ship of Amurath, and in point of fact became his vassal. 
Amurath, however, having undertaken an expedition into 
Servia, was treacherously slain at the close of a victorious 
day, by a Servian prince who was lying mortally wounded 
on the field of battle. 

His successor, Bajazet the Thunderbolt, first ordered the 
execution of all princes of his own race, and then reduced 
_ the Servians to obedience. He changed the title of emir 
to that of sultan. He conquered almost all that was left 


52 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


of the Greek Empire, and all the fertile regions lying round 
the shores of the Black Sea. 

After defeating the Hungarian king in a pitched battle, 
in which a brilliant band of Western princes and knights 
fought desperately, but without due discipline, against the 
infidel, Bajazet threatened to besiege Belgrade. Among his 
prisoners was the Sieur de Boucicault, who afterward, when 
Constantinople was first attacked by the Turks, defended it 
successfully. He governed Genoa, invaded Asia, and died 
at Agincourt. He held pen as well as sword, and wrote a 
narrative of his captivity, extolling the generosity and chiy- 
alry of the Grand Turk on every page. ‘The gay cavaliers 
of France and Burgundy proved valuable prizes to the 
Turkish sultan. Besides a ransom of two hundred thousand 
ducats paid for the survivors, the king of Cyprus sent, to 
secure their good treatment in captivity, a golden salt-cellar 
worth ten thousand ducats; while Charles VI. (who was 
sane at the time of this calamity) sent a cast of Norwegian 
hawks, six horse-loads of scarlet cloth and of fine linen, 
besides arras tapestry representing the battles of Alexander, 
It had been stipulated when ransom was paid for the French 
captives, that they should swear never again to bear arms 
against their conquerors; “ but Bajazet,” says Boucicault, 
“absolved us, saying to the heir of Burgundy: ‘Thou art 
young and mayst be ambitious of effacing the disgrace or 
the misfortune of thy first chivalry. Assemble thy powers, 
proclaim thy design, and be assured that Bajazet will rejoice 
to meet thee a second time in battle.’ ” 

In 1399 Bajazet’s ambition prompted him to subdue 
Constantinople, but he abstained on the advice of his grand 
vizier, who represented that such an enterprise might unite 
the princes of Europe in another formidable crusade. Soon 
after he was checked in his career of Western conquest by 
tidings from the East, which called his attention to Asia. 

About thirty years before (that is during the latter years 
of the Black Prince) a mighty conqueror, Timour the Tar- 
tar, better known as Tamerlane, had appeared in Central 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 53 


Asia. He advanced so far to the northwest as to threaten 
Moscow, conquered Bagdad and Shiraz, left a record of 
his passage in Siberia, and subdued those parts of Central 
Asia which, until lately, when the Russians began their 
Trans-Caspian Railway, have been rarely visited and little 
known. Thence Timour passed over into Hindostan by 
way of the Indus, advancing in the track of Alexander the 
Great. He soon, however, overpassed his Macedonian 
predecessor. He reached Delhi, and pushed forward to 
the sources of the Ganges. He there received news that 
Sultan Bajazet, indignant at his having espoused the cause 
of some rebellious chiefs, was preparing to invade the west- 
ern frontier of his dominions. After some correspondence, 
more like the vaunts of the Homeric chiefs than diplomatic 
intercourse in modern times, in which the Turkish sultan is 
styled the Kaisser of Rome, the angry conquerors prepared 
to measure their strength in a pitched battle. 

Timour was a zealous Mussulman, but he belonged to 
that unorthodox section of the faith which is still the religion 
of Persia, and reveres the memories of the martyrs Ali and 
Houssain. His wars with the Saracens and Turks became 
wars of religion. His army met that of Sultan Bajazet in 
1402 at Angora in Anatolia. The Turkish army had four 
hundred thousand men, and in its ranks were twenty thou- 
sand men-at-arms from the countries of Western Europe, 
besides forty thousand Janissaries. But in spite of the 
conduct of the sultan, who, though suffering from gout, and 
but ill-mounted, displayed, it is said, all the qualities of a 
soldier and a chief, —in spite of the splendid charges of 
the Europeans, and the faithful self-devotion of the Janis- 
saries, — victory decided in favor of Timour. Bajazet was 
captured, and a body of Tartar cavalry pursued his flying 
army to the shores of the Sea of Marmora. 

Gibbon has sifted the old story of the iron cage in which 
Timour imprisoned Bajazet, and finds it probably true. 
Why should it not be true? ‘Timour was a conqueror 
always on the march, who in the case of so illustrious a 


54 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


captive must have felt the necessity of a portable prison. 
Nearly a hundred years after this date Louis XI. held 
Cardinal de Balue in similar confinement, and the Countess 
of Buchan was so punished for having crowned the Bruce 
in Scotland in 1306. 

The hordes of Timour were happily unable to cross the 
Hellespont, which was defended by the Turks, nor could 
they cross the Bosphorus, which was defended by the Greek 
emperor. 

Soliman, the son of Bajazet, however, humbled himself 
to solicit the clemency of the conqueror, and the Greek 
emperor transferred to Timour’s military chest the tribute 
he had been in the habit of paying to the sultan. Ambas- 
sadors from Egypt, Arabia, India, Tartary, Russia, Spain, 
and even France, visited the court of Timour at Samarcand 
before he set out on his last expedition to China. He died 
upon the march in 1403, and his tomb is near the present 
terminus of the Russian Trans-Caspian Railway. His effigy 
as the Great Mogul adorns every pack of playing-cards 
printed in England. 

The European dominions of the Turkish sultans now fell 
into confusion and anarchy. Had the Latins joined the 
Greeks at this crisis they might have driven back the infidel 
to Asia. But the dislike that in that age was felt for unortho- 
dox Christians was stronger than that inspired by such 
Mussulman conquerors as Othman and the descendants of 
his sons. 

During the great anarchy that reigned throughout the 
East for fifty years Constantinople was twice besieged by 
the Turks, but the strength of its walls resisted them. 
Gibbon says of the Ottoman Empire: “The massy trunk 
was bent to the ground, but no sooner did the hurricane 
pass away than it rose with fresh vigor, and more lively 
vegetation.” When the Turks attacked Constantinople for 


1 Playing-cards were first invented about this period. Timour 
himself was a great chess-player. 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 55 


the third time, in 1453, they had been instructed by the 
Genoese in the use of cannon. 

Manuel Palzologos, the dutiful son who took his imperial 
father out of pawn to the Venetians, reigned at Constanti- 
nople during nearly all these fifty years. His efforts, and 
those of his son John Palzologos II., were directed not 
toward the renovation of their decaying empire, but toward 
accommodating the disputes between the Latin and Greek 
churches, and so procuring the support and countenance 
of Roman Catholic princes. Both Manuel and his son 
made pilgrimages of supplication to the popes at Avignon. 
Manuel even passed over into England, where he induced 
Henry IV. to take the cross for another crusade. 


“TI had a purpose now 
To lead out many to the Holy Land,” 


says Shakespeare’s Henry IV. when dying in the Jerusalem 
chamber, and his gallant son, who cherished the same 
purpose, alludes to Turkish history in his speech after his 
father’s death, when he says, desiring to reassure his four 
brothers : — 


“This is the English — not the Turkish court; 
Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, 
But Harry Harry.” 


John Palzologos II. reached Italy in 1438, just as the 
papal court was on the eve of returning from Avignon. 
After delay and disappointment he succeeded in effecting 
a treaty with the pope, which was to secure him help from 
Catholic Christendom, and bring the Greek Church into 
subjection to that of Rome. Several of the Greek bishops 
were made cardinals, and some of them hastened to do 
their part in carrying out the treaty, the news of which 
was far from being welcomed by all Greek Christians. 
Isidor, the primate of Russia, who had been created a 
cardinal and legate, was at once deposed by his clergy. 
The patriarchs ef Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, whose 
sees were under the protection of the Turks, assembled a 


56 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


synod, denounced the agreement entered into by Pale- 
ologos, condemned the creed and councils of the Roman 
Church, and threatened the Greek emperor with excom- 
munication. 

Pope Eugenius, on his part, did what he could to gather 
together forces for a crusade; but France and England 
were exhausted by long wars, and, though Frederick of 
Germany promised his assistance, he entered into the 
scheme with no enthusiasm. Philip of Burgundy (father of 
Charles the Bold, brother of the prince so courteously treated 
by Sultan Bajazet) sent a contingent. Venice and Genoa, 
for once, united their fleets. Poland and Hungary sent 
their light horsemen, and what was of more importance they 
contributed a hero. ‘The Servian Catholics promised to 
rise against their Turkish masters; an Armenian prince 
offered to make a diversion in Asia, which would favor the 
Christians; a few knights of renown from France and 
Germany led their own followers ; and the Greek emperor 
promised to guard the Bosphorus and to attack the Turks 
when occasion offered. 

During this time the four sons of Bajazet had been 
engaged in strife for his inheritance. It was at last grasped 
by Mohammed the youngest and the ablest of the family. 
His son Amurath II. succeeded him. The Greek emperor 
Manuel Palzologos, hoping to profit by civil discord among 
the Turks, broke his word by releasing from prison Mus- 
tapha, a rival claimant for the throne, who was, or called 
himself, the son of Bajazet. Amurath, however, triumphed 
over this competitor, and though unable to revenge himself 
upon the emperor of Constantinople at the time, bore 
him a deep grudge for his treachery. 

Ladislas, who was then king, both of Poland and of 
Hungary, believing himself to be acting in concert with the 
crusaders of the pope, led an army of his confederated 
subjects in 1444, as far as Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. 
Two battles were fought, in which the Christians were 
victorious through the skill and valor of John Hunniades, 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 57 


a young chief of Wallachia. After these victories Ladislas 
went back to Belgrade for the winter, and there received 
a deputation from Sultan Amurath, soliciting peace. The 
Turks promised to restore Servia, and to withdraw from the 
frontier of Hungary. ‘These terms were accepted, and a 
truce for ten years was concluded. But the pope’s legate 
was greatly disappointed, and hardly was the treaty con- 
cluded when news reached Belgrade that the Armenians 
were in full revolt in Asia, that the Greek emperor had in- 
vaded Thrace, that the combined fleets of Venice, Genoa, and 
Burgundy, had passed the Hellespont, and the allies, ignorant 
of any agreement between Ladislas and the sultan, demanded 
the co-operation of the victorious Polish and Hungarian army. 

The legate, in an eager speech, absolved the Christians 
from all sin of perjury should they break their oaths to the 
infidel. In the very room where the treaty with the sultan 
had been solemnly sworn to.a few days before, war was 
again declared against the Turks. But the army of Ladislas 
had been already broken up. ‘The German and French 
knights had departed before the first treaty was signed, 
refusing to make terms with unbelievers. The Poles were 
never willing long to keep the field. A Wallachian chief 
remarked that the remnant of the army remaining with 
Ladislas was hardly more numerous than the hunting 
retinue which attended the sultan. 

The confederated army, however, which was composed 
entirely of Roman Catholics, marched through Bulgaria, 
burning as it went the cottages of the Greek Christians. 
At Varna, near the shores of the Black Sea, it met the Turks, 
commanded by ex-Sultan Amurath, who had abdicated in 
favor of his son Mohammed II. 

Amurath marched with a copy of the violated treaty 
borne before him as a banner, and it is said that he called 
upon the God of the Christians before the battle to punish 
the perfidy of His followers. 

Ladislas perished in a brilliant charge, and the cardinal 
legate also fell, A column was erected by the victorious 


58 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT# CENTURY. 


Amurath to the memory of Ladislas, commending his 
valor, and recording his unhappy fate. Hunniades fled to 
Hungary, where at first he was made regent, and after- 
wards king, He “spent his life in battle with the Turk,”’ 
whom he repulsed, a month before his death, from before 
the walls of Belgrade. 

The crusading forces returned to western Europe with- 
out having accomplished any deliverance for the Greek 
emperor. But southern Greece was up in arms against 
the Turk, and Albania, peopled by a race descended from 
the Macedonians, was making rapid progress in insurrection 
under George Castriot, better known as Scanderbeg, — 
which is Turkish for Prince Alexander. He is the only one 
of the tribute children converted into Janissaries whom we 
know to have retained any memory of his Christian faith or 
friends. For twenty-three years after he abjured the 
Prophet, and his allegiance. to the sultan, he fought the 
Turks as the avenger of his country and her wrongs. At 
last, for some reason that we do not know (probably because 
his resources were exhausted), he sought refuge in Venetian 
territory. The Janissaries, who soon after his death had 
the opportunity of plundering his tomb, had his bones set 
in gold, and wore them as amulets. His son escaped to 
Naples, where his blood still flows in the veins of some of 
the noblest families. 

Four years after the defeat of the Christians at Varna, 
the Emperor John Palzeologos II. suddenly died, and, after 
a short interval of disputed succession, was succeeded by 
Constantine Palzeologos, not only the last and best, but the 
sole hero of his family. Our knowledge of him is drawn 
largely from the memoirs of his chamberlain, Phranza; but 
all accounts of him agree. 

At the time of Constantine’s accession (1448) Moham- 
med II. was already making preparations to besiege 
Constantinople on a scale of unparalleled magnitude. 
Cannon, just begun to be used in war, were cast of a size 
never again equalled until our own day. One cannon 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 59 


threw a ball weighing six hundred and sixty pounds, and 
was large enough to give shelter in after years to an abscond- 
ing tailor. Soldiers were recruited in every Mohammedan 
country, a powerful navy was put afloat, and immense 
magazines were formed. 

Constantinople meantime was a scene of cowardly despair, 
discord, and confusion. In the doomed city seemed to 
shine only one noble soul. In the spring of 1453 Moham- 
med Il. appeared before its gates with two hundred and 
fifty thousand men. Constantine, after using every exer- 
tion, could only raise a force of forty-nine hundred Greeks ; 
these were, however, reinforced by two thousand men-at- 
arms from western Europe, under the conduct of Gian 
Gustiniani, a native of Genoa. But the princes of Europe 
stood aloof. The pope, indignant at the obstinacy with which 
the Greek Christians refused to admit his supremacy, prophe- 
sied the success of the Infidels; the princes of the Morea 
and of the Islands of the A‘gean affected cold neutrality. 

Constantinople is situated on a triangular piece of 
ground, and formed at that day almost a semi-amphitheatre. 
On its northern side is its noble harbor, the Golden 
Horn; on the south, the Sea of Marmora. ‘The west land- 
line, or base of the triangle, extended in a slightly curved 
line from the Sea of Marmora to the harbor. ‘This western 
wall, which was double, was nearly six miles long. It was 
old, but was defended by a deep moat. The side of the 
city toward the sea was protected by a strong current ; 
while the harbor was defended by a mighty chain sup- | 
ported on several large vessels. The first efforts of the 
Turks were directed against the land side. They not only 
relied on their enormous cannon, but appear to have ~ 
employed something like the modern me¢razileuses. ‘The 
cannon and the mtrailleuses were supplemented by the 
catapults and moving towers of antiquity. By the com- 
bined use of such arts of annoyance, an immense breach 
was effected in the outer wall; but Gustiniani and the 
emperor, by great personal exertions, repaired the damage 


60 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


before daylight, and destroyed the wooden tower relied on 
py the besiegers. 

A few days afterward five merchant vessels laden with sup- 
plies broke through the Turkish fleet, which was composed 
only of innumerable small boats and a few war-galleys. 
In vain did Sultan Mohammed, sitting on horseback on 
the shore, endeavor by shouts, gestures, and reproaches to 
animate his followers; the Christian ships swept on, and 
safely anchored within the chain of the harbor. But the 
cannon of the Turks were directed by a Christian engineer, 
and the ambassador of Hungary, relying on a prophesy that 
the capture of Constantinople should be the last of the 
Turkish conquests, was in the Ottoman camp directing the 
operations of the Infidel. The reduction of the city, how- 
ever, appeared hopeless, unless an attack could be made 
both from the harbor and the land. Mohammed (resolved 
that nothing should be impossible where he was concerned) 
determined to carry his fleet overland six miles, and launch 
it in the harbor, between the great boom and the city. 
Relying on the supineness of the Genoese, who, inhabiting 
the suburb of Galata, might have obstructed the passage, 
the sultan in ten days constructed a plank-road made slip- 
pery with grease and with vast quantities of millet. Fifty 
light galleys were landed on this road, placed on rollers, 
and drawn forward by men and pulleys. Every vessel had 
its sails set to a favoring breeze, and in the course of one 
night this Turkish fleet surmounted an elevation, steered 
over the plain, and was launched into the harbor. In vain 
the Greeks now tried to burn this fleet ; the insufficient gar- 
rison was too weak to sustain a double attack, and all hope 
for Constantinople was over. 

Still Constantine refused to yield. The sultan offered 
him safety, riches, and an honorable retirement. He de- 
clined to make any terms which included the surrender of 
his capital. May 29, the 53d day of the siege, was fixed 
on as propitious for the final assault. Mohammed promised 
his men the slaves and the spoil, reserving to himself the 


THE CRESCENT VERSUS CHRISTENDOM. 6I 


buildings of the city. On the night of May 28 the Turkish 
camp was all ablaze with bonfires. 

That night, within the walls of the doomed city, the no- 
blest of the Greeks and the bravest of their allies met in the 
palace at the summons of Constantine. He made them a 
last speech. They wept together, and kissed each other. 
Then each commander went forth calmly to his post, and 
the emperor entered the cathedral of St. Sophia. There 
the Lord’s Supper was celebrated for the last time, the 
emperor and his few guards kneeling at midnight to receive 
the elements with prayers and tears. Then Constantine, 
taking leave of his own household, and imploring the for- 
giveness of any he might have wronged, mounted his 
horse, and went forth before sunrise. For two hours his 
voice was heard above the roar of the assault, encouraging 
his soldiers. The sultan’s troops from Anatolia and from 
Roum fell by hundreds, and their bodies made a bridge 
across the ditch over which the Janissaries at last mounted 
the breach under the eye of their sovereign and com- 
mander. At this moment Gian Gustiniani, — the brave 
Genoese chief, — was wounded by an arrow in his hand. 
The extreme pain of the wound overcame his power of en- 
durance. In vain the emperor implored him to disregard 
his anguish. He passed to the rear. The foreign troops 
lost heart. Hassan, a giant Janissary, with twelve comrades 
scaled the breach. 

Whatever we may think of the Greek people in this 
struggle with the Turks, the courage of the self-devoted 
band of friends and nobles who drew around Constantine 
should never be forgotten. The last words of the emperor 
that history has recorded were: ‘“ Cannot there be found a 
Christian to cut off my head?” 

The Turkish forces poured into the city; the multitude 
rushed into the Church of St. Sophia. Ducas, a French- 
man, who was an eye-witness, shall tell the tale : — 


“The Turks, having reached the cathedral, cut down the gate 
with axes, entered with drawn swords, and having cast a glance 


602 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


upon the crowd, proceeded to seize them separately as slaves, 
without encountering any resistance. Who can describe such 
ruinand calamity? The Turk, with sacrilegious hand, seizes on 
every nun of delicate form or beautiful person; one carries off 
his victim bound;- another, more powerful, snatches her away 
from him. The curling hair, the naked breast, the extended 
arms offer fresh inducements to the plunderers. The mistress 
was bound with her servant; the master with his purchased 
slave; the priest with the porter at the gate. Young men were 
linked in the same chain with virgins on whom the sun had never 
shone, — whose faces their own fathers had scarcely beheld; and 
stripes were inflicted on their tender flesh if they dared to offer 
any resistance. The space of an hour was sufficient for these 
robbers, these ministers of Divine vengeance, to bind the 
whole multitude, — the men with ropes, the women with their 
own fillets and shawls.” 


At two o’clock on the same day victorious Mohammed 
entered the city by the Gate of St. Romanus, through 
which an ancient prophesy had predicted the free passage 
of a destroyer. He paused at St. Sophia, and ordered the 
destruction of all Christian emblems, that it might be con- 
verted into a mosque, and then rode on to the great 
Blachernal Palace. As he entered its courts he was heard 
repeating to himself some lines of Persian poetry, — 


“The spider has spun her web in the palace of the Cesars, 
The owl has sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab.” 


But Mohammed, though a man of generous impulses and 
literary tastes, was still a savage. He did not, indeed, at 
first trample on or oppress his Christian subjects on account 
of their religion; on the contrary, the heads of the Greek 
Church were treated with respect; and the churches and 
chapels of Constantinople were divided between them and 
the Moslems. He caused the dead body of the emperor 
to be sought, and gave it honorable burial. But cruelties 
unspeakable, committed in cold blood two weeks after the 
capture and the fall of Constantinople, filled Christendom 
with horror, though no combined movement was attempted 
against the Turks for several years. 


CHAPTER] IV. 
TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. 


Soe though civilized Christendom might have been 
on hearing the fate of the capital of the Greek 
Empire, and the story of the sufferings of Greek Christians, 
there was one barbarous people in whose hearts the taking 
of Constantinople roused deep and permanent emotion. 
“There remains now,” said a contemporary Russian an- 
nalist, “but one Orthodox Empire. The prophecies are 
accomplished which long ago announced that the sons of 
Ishmael should conquer Byzantium. Perhaps we are destined 
also to see the fulfilment of that prophecy which promises 
that the Russians shall triumph over the children of Ish- 
mael, and reign over the seven hills of Constantinople.” 
After the events we have recorded Mohammed the Great 
reigned nearly thirty years. He rooted out from the Morea 
the last princes of the house of Palzologos, and forced 
one of them to give him his daughter in marriage. He 
conquered Greece, Servia, the Islands of the A®gean Sea, 
and the tiny Greek Empire of Trebizond, where the last 
of the Comneni still reigned. The princes of that house 
were murdered by the Turks, and their mother, the Em- 
press Irene, after digging for them a grave with her own 
hands, fell dead by the side of her beloved ones, and the 
earth was filled in over them. Mohammed rent Nigropont 
from the Venetians, and other important places from the 
Genoese. Frequent wars with Persia, however, prevented 
more vigorous operations against Christian princes, ‘The 
most memorable enterprise he undertook during his latter 


64 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


years was against the Island of Rhodes. That island had 
been conquered from the Saracens by the Knights Hospit- 
allers about fifteen years after their expulsion from Pales- 
tine, in 1291. Its ports were at that time nests for pirates, 
but the Knights suppressed the pirates, occupied the island, 
and built fortifications of enormous strength. Rhodes was 
fertile, beautiful, and picturesque beyond description. The 
fleets of the Knights kept in check the Mohammedan 
corsairs, and the inhabitants of the island became prosper- 
ous and happy. Against it, however, in 1480, Mohammed 
sent a force of seventy thousand men, in one hundred 
and sixty vessels commanded by four Greek renegades. 
One of these was an engineer of reputation, another, who 
commanded the expedition, was a Palzologos. The im- 
mense guns of the Turks soon made a breach in the great 
tower. In spite of the efforts of the Knights it grew wider 
and wider, till the Grand Master, Pierre d’Aubusson, per- 
ceived that nothing more was possible, except to resist an 
assault. This was not long delayed. The Turkish ships 
bore down upon the Tower of St. Nicholas, which was close 
to the water’s edge. All day the sixteen thousand followers 
of the Knights defended the position against five times 
their number. Thousands of Turks were cut down, but 
thousands more seemed to replace the slain and wounded. 
When at last the day closed D’Aubusson sent fire-ships into 
the fleet of the enemy. Several galleys caught fire, and the 
Turkish fleet was dispersed. 

Again Palzologos attacked the place in a new quarter. 
Men, women, children, nuns, and Jews (a part of the popu- 
lation much devoted to the Knights) joined in the work 
of strengthening the defences. Again and again Palzeologos 
attacked, but was every time repulsed, until at last, with a 
loss of more than half his men, he drew off his fleet, and 
left the island. The sultan sentenced him to death for 
the failure of his enterprise, but his punishment was com- 
muted to exile. Mohammed himself died shortly after. 
He directed that on his tomb should be engraved: “I 


TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. 65 


intended to capture Rhodes, and subjugate Italy.” Asa 
first step toward the latter purpose his troops had already 
attacked and taken Otranto, and the kingdoms of the West 
were filled with fear. 

Mohammed’s empire was disputed by his two sons, 
Bajazet and Zizim. Achmet Pasha, the victorious com- 
mander who had just returned from planting the crescent 
on the towers of Otranto, declared for Bajazet. Zizim 
sought refuge in Rhodes. He was far from handsome, 
though a prince of great accomplishments, and of a noble 
soul. The Grand Master d’Aubusson, who lived twenty- 
three years after his glorious defence of Rhodes, unhappily 
stained his memory on this occasion with treachery. He 
sent Zizim to a Commandery of his Order in France, in a 
sort of honorable captivity. The Order accepted a bribe 
from Bajazet to keep him safely. Pope Innocent VIII., 
however, insisted that the Mohammedan prince should be 
given up to him, in order that he might lead against the 
Turks a Christian army, which was being raised in Hun- 
gary. Zizim was therefore sent to Rome, and was there 
treated with distinction, but Innocent, who died soon after, 
was succeeded by Cardinal Borgia, Alexander VI., of in- 
famous memory, who, being bribed by Bajazet, with three 
hundred thousand ducats, first imprisoned, and then pois- 
oned the Turkish prince on the eve of his surrender to 
Charles VIII., who was on his march to Naples. 

Bajazet II. reigned twenty-one years. He was poisoned 
by his son Selim, who reigned eight years, and was suc- 
ceeded in 1519 by his only son, Solyman the magnificent, 
the most illustrious sultan of an illustrious house. ‘This 
prince was proclaimed sultan three days before Charles V. 
was crowned emperor of Germany. 

Bajazet and Selim had not pushed their conquests in 
Europe ; they were chiefly occupied by the affairs of Egypt, 
Syria, and Palestine; but Solyman began his reign by a 
successful expedition against Rhodes. He commanded it 
in person, at the head of two hundred thousand men. He 

x 


66 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


also invaded Hungary, laid Moldavia under tribute, and 
subdued all the kingdom of the Saracens in Western Asia. 
He then led another expedition through Hungary into 
Austria, but was checked in 1529 before the walls of Vienna. 
Subsequently Hungary made an alliance with him, out of 
hatred for Austria, and his great corsair Barbarossa spread 
terror and devastation along the coasts of the Mediterranean 
Sea. The alliance of Solyman was courted by the Most 
Christian king Francis I., and even the pope was accused 
of being favorable to him out of enmity to the Greek 
Christians. His empire extended from the Danube to the 
Euphrates, — from the Adriatic to the shores of the Black 
Sea. In 1565 his general Mustapha with thirty thousand 
men (among them six thousand Janissaries) attacked the 
Knights Hospitallers, who after being driven out of Rhodes, 
had found an asylum in Malta.? 

Solyman before he died united the sacerdotal character 
of caliph with that of sultan, and became the Prince of 
True Believers. As such he was addressed by Queen 
Elizabeth, who was advised to style herself to him Defender 
of the Faith against Christian idolaters. His subjects 
called him the Lawgiver, for he completed the code of laws 
begun by his great-grandfather, — all of which are based 
upon precepts in the Koran. 

Solyman was less of a voluptuary and better educated 
than his predecessors. In glory he excelled them all; but 
he was the last of the great Ottoman sultans. From his 
time the family of Othman has degenerated, and the 
power of the Porte has declined. ‘Two causes have con- 
tributed to this decay. Many changes were permitted 
in the organization and discipline of the Janissaries; and 
the sultan caused his promising young son Mustapha to 
be murdered almost in his presence, that the son of his 
favorite (a Russian slave) might succeed him on the 
throne. Instead of receiving the hardy, liberal education 


1 The glorious particulars of that most interesting siege have 
been stirringly told by Mr. Prescott in his life of Philip II. 


TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. 67 


hitherto given to princes of his race, this young man was 
brought up, as all his successors have been since, in the 
voluptuousness and effeminacy of the seraglio. 

From Solyman’s death in 1566, to the present day, 

there have been twenty-two sultans, but none of them, save 
Sultan Mahmoud, the destroyer of the Janissaries, have 
shown marked talent or great vigor. 
, All through the seventeenth century the Turks struggled 
with Austria, often in the character of the allies and _ pro- 
tectors of Hungary; and in 1683 Vienna had all but met 
the fate of Constantinople. In 1699 the treaty of Carlo- 
witz deprived Turkey of the Ukraine and Podalia, gave the 
Morea to the Venetians, and the strong post of Azof to the 
Russians. 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who passed over the 
lands rendered desolate by these cruel wars in 1717, thus 
speaks of what she witnessed : — 


“The desert woods of Servia are the common refuge of 
thieves, who rob, fifty in a company, and the villages are so poor 
that only force could extort from them the necessary provisions. 
Indeed the Janissaries had no mercy on their poverty, killing 
all the poultry and sheep they could find, without asking to 
whom they belonged, while the wretched owners dared not put 
in their claims for fear of being beaten.” 


In that year (1717) the Sultan Achmet again went to 
wart with Austria. The aged hero Prince Eugene compelled 
him to give up nearly all Servia and Moldavia, but the 
latter was recovered by the Turks after it had been goy- 
erned by Austria for nineteen years. Twenty years later 
the Turks regained Servia and Wallachia, but they gave up 
the Crimea to Russia. 

Such incessant changes make it impossible in a short 
history to follow the fortunes of the provinces and princi- 
palities which once formed part of European Turkey; and 
it seems to have been equally difficult for those distracted 
countries to consolidate since their emancipation. 

Hostilities hardly at any time ceased between Turkey 


68 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE X1XTH CENTURY, 


and Russia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- 
ries, and the memory of this strife is so vivid in the minds 
of the Russian peasantry, that, it is said, they still call all 
enemies “‘mussulmans”’ in their village padozs. 

After the reign of Solyman, the Ottoman Empire seems 
to lose, itself in a number of large, disorderly, ill-organized 
provinces, in which Christians in Europe were more numer- 
ous than the Mohammedans. But they agreed only in their 
hatred of the Turks ; they differed widely on points of ortho- 
doxy, in race, laws, interests, language, and aspirations. 

All the provinces were fertile, all were almost without 
roads, all felt themselves oppressed by local tyrants, above 
all by the tax-collector. All were densely ignorant, but all 
were accustomed to some sort of local self-government, on 
the village system. Most of them made bitter complaints 
of the subserviency of the dignitaries of the Greek Church 
to the Mussulman authorities at Constantinople; no man 
seemed to expect justice from a Turk without bribery, not 
so much because he was a Christian, as because Greek 
Christians were a subject race. As some one suggested in 
1873, “Take all the evils that afflicted France before the 
Revolution, add those that distracted England under the 
Norman kings, aggravate them by the bickerings and jeal- 
ousies of Jews, Mohammedans, Roman Catholics, Rene- 
gades, and Greek Christians, — then leaven this mass with 
a vague hope of coming deliverance, such as will enable 
every man among them to set his foot upon the neck of 
his oppressor, and you may form some idea of the condi- 
tion of things.” 

Sultan Mahmoud II.—styled ‘the shadow of the 
Almighty upon earth’? — was the second son of Sultan Abdul 
Hamid, who died in 1789 when Mahmoud was only four 
years old. Abdul Hamid, according to the law of succes- 
sion in Turkey, was succeeded, not by one of his sons, but 
by his brother Selim III. On Selim’s death, in 1807, 
Mustapha, the eldest son of Abdul Hamid, was called to 
the throne. It was his purpose to adhere to Turkish prece- 


LURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. 69 


dent and put his younger brothers to death, in order to 
forestall conspiracies in their favor, in order also that his 
own sons might, after his death, replace him on the throne. 
Mustapha was therefore preparing to get rid of Mahmoud 
in the obscurity of the seraglio, when a military émewze sud- 
denly deposed him, and girded Mahmoud with the sword 
of Osman, a ceremony equivalent to Western coronation. 
Needless to say that Mustapha was murdered, and that his 
infant children were destroyed. 

The early years of Mahmoud’s reign were occupied by 
incessant disputes with the all-powerful Janissaries. We 
have seen how Lady Mary Wortley Montagu spoke of 
them half a century before, and since her time they had 
only increased in arrogance and insubordination. Alter- 
nately they coerced their sovereign into granting their 
demands, even to the banishment and execution of his per- 
sonal attendants and favorites, or they were in open revolt 
against him. When very much exasperated they were in 
the habit of setting fire to the outskirts of Constantinople. 
The streets of that city frequently ran blood. But during 
the early years of the nineteenth century western Europe 
had no time to turn its eyes upon the East, being absorbed 
by the conquests and successes of the mighty emperor of 
the Western world. 

The year that Napoleon invaded Russia, that power con- 
cluded a long war with Turkey, by the Treaty of Bucharest ; 
but it is Turkish policy to make promises on paper, and 
never to fulfil them. ‘There were 'too policies in the Divan 
at that period: that of Russia and of England, who on the 
Turkish question were then united; and that of France, 
- which was ably sustained by Marshal Sebastiani, then the 
French ambassador. But Mahmoud was restive under 
foreign dictation. His reign continued to be a succession 
of treasons and rebellions, suppressed (when not submitted 
to) by revolting cruelty. The Servians rose against him. 
Mehemet Ali, a Macedonian soldier of fortune, who had 
been made governor of Egypt, converted himself almost 


7O RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


into an independent sovereign. Roumelia, Widdin, Damas- 
cus, Trebizond, St. Jean d’ Acre, Aleppo, and other places 
were scenes of revolt and of frightful massacre. Ali, the 
bold, crafty, energetic pasha of Jannina (the potentate 
visited in his fastnesses by Lord Byron) made himself mas- 
ter of Epirus, and the war which thereupon ensued with 
the Albanians might be called a prologue to the Revolution 
in Greece. As soon as Sultan Mahmoud was convinced 
that in his conflict with Ali the sympathy of his Greek 
subjects went with his opponents, he issued the following 
order to his generals: ‘‘ Every Christian capable of bearing 
arms must die. The boys shall be circumcised and edu- 
cated in the military discipline of Europe to form a supple- 
mentary corps of Janissaries.”’ 

The Society of the Hetaire or the Brotherhood of the 
friends of Greece had been joined by men of influence, 
wealth, and education in all countries, and by 1821 it 
numbered eighty thousand members. Prince Alexander 
Ypsilanti, the fast friend and aide-de-camp of the Emperor 
Alexander, made not the smallest doubt that his master, 
then under the religious influence of Madame de Kriidener, 
would second any movement in favor of Greek Christians 
and assist it if necessary with material aid. But the con- 
science of Alexander was torn by what seemed to him con- 
flicting obligations. ‘To abandon the cause of the Greek 
Christians was hard, especially as to support it might prob- 
ably give him that paramount influence which every Russian 
covets in the city of Constantinople. On the other hand 
he had sworn solemnly and with great earnestness to be 
faithful to the Holy Alliance, which, as he understood it at 
the time he took his oath, was an alliance between Austria, 
Prussia, France, and Russia to put down every attempt at 
revolution in any country in Europe, — revolution being 
synonymous with atheism in Alexander’s mind. 

At the moment when Ypsilanti was lifting the standard of 
revolt at Jassy in Moldavia, and was assuring his followers 
of the countenance and protection of the Russian emperor, 


TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. Ze 


— when all Greek Christians throughout Turkey were pre- 
paring to unite in the revolt, —a military insurrection took 
place in Italy, and Spain was convulsed by a constitutional 
revolution. ‘Those uprisings were considered so formidable 
to the peace of Europe that the Holy Alliance called on 
France to invade Spain, and force the constitutionalists into 
submission to King Ferdinand, the despicable despot whom 
the Congress of Vienna had set over them. Could Alex- 
ander, thus engaged in putting down one revolutionary 
movement place himself at the head of another, — even 
though the Revolution in Greece was the cause of his 
co-religionists against Mohammedan oppressors ? 

He decided that his honor called him to stand faithfully 
by the word which he had pledged to the Holy Alliance. 
He cast off Madame de Kriidener, he disowned all connec- 
tion with the Hetairists and Ypsilanti; but from that time 
forward to the day of his death he suffered from fits of 
great excitement alternating with periods of religious 
melancholy. He may be said to have died a victim to 
his sense of honor conflicting with his interests and his 
sympathies. 

Ypsilanti, disavowed by his former friend and emperor, 
continued his struggle against the Turks in Wallachia and 
Moldavia. ‘Those pashaliks were then called the Danubian 
Provinces ; they are now the Kingdom of Roumania. As 
seen on the map their form is much like that of a baby’s 
sock, Moldavia being the ankle, Wallachia the foot, the sole 
of which extends along the northern or left bank of the 
Danube. The country is wedged in between Hungary and 
Russia. For the latter its inhabitants have no great affec- 
tion, partly on account of religious differences ; for they are 
chiefly of the Greek Church owing allegiance to the Patri- 
arch of Constantinople, whereas the czar is head of the 
Church to all orthodox Christians in his dominions. 

The refusal of Alexander to countenance his aide-de-camp 
was a death-blow to the rising in the Danubian Provinces ; 
but the spirit of the Greeks was already stirred. Besides, 


72 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT? CENTURY. 


they did not believe that Russia would really desert them 
in their extremity. 

As soon as the news of Ypsilanti’s rising reached Con- 
stantinople Sultan Mahmoud and his Divan resolved upon 
a blow that should strike terror to the hearts of all Greek 
Christians. 

On Easter Sunday, the great Festival in the Greek 
Church, as the Patriarch Gregorius, then eighty years old, 
was descending the steps of the altar, he was seized and 
hanged over the gate of his Archiepiscopal Palace amid 
the furious cries of a vast crowd of Mussulmans. After the 
body had hung three hours it was ‘cut down and delivered 
over to an infuriated band of Jews, who dragged it by the 
long beard about the streets, and finally flung it into the 
harbor. Thence Christians, by night, recovered it, and 
transported it to Odessa, where it was at length solemnly 
interred. 

Everywhere, after the death of the patriarch, priests and 
leading Greeks shared the same fate, and the Christian 
churches were openly profaned. ‘Not a day passed,” says 
Alison, ‘“‘that numbers of the Greek citizens in Constanti- 
nople and Adrianople were not murdered, their property 
plundered, and their wives and daughters sold as slaves. 
In ten days several thousand innocent persons were in 
this manner massacred.” 

On the 15th of June, 1821, five archbishops, three bishops 
and a great number of laymen, were hanged in the streets 
of Constantinople without any trial, and four hundred and 
fifty Greek mechanics were transported as slaves to the 
Assyrian frontier, At Salonika (the Thessalonica of Saint 
Paul) the battlements of the city were hung round with a 
ghastly dangling fringe of Christian heads, whose blood ran 
down the wall and reddened the water in the ditch. Nor 
was all this over in a day, nor in a month, nor in a year. 
It was going on continually in all parts of the Turkish 
Empire from 1821 to 1829. 

The Greeks of the Peleponnesus and of the Islands of 


TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. 73 


the Archipelago, fought with desperate courage. The suc- 
cesses of their little fleet were due chiefly to fire-ships, 
which they managed with great daring and dexterity. 
But bravely as they fought they had no ideas of the vir- 
tues and the duties of citizens. At the height of their 
war against the Turks their leaders turned their arms 
against each other. ‘‘They are the same rascals that they 
were in the days of Themistocles,” said one diplomatist 
to another. 

Saddest among the stories that stirred all hearts in Eng- 
land and America in those days, was that of the great 
massacre in the Island of Scio. But the massacre at Scio 
was no worse than other massacres in Cyprus, Crete, 
Smyrna, and numbers of other places. To Boston in 
1826 was brought Garafelia, a little Greek girl who was 
drawn with her mother from their hiding-place in an oven, 
and sold as a slave. She was redeemed by an American 
philanthropist and brought to America, where the very 
name of Garafelia became popular. 

Twenty-five thousand people, it was said, met death in 
one day in the massacre of Scio, and thirty thousand 
women and children were sold as slaves. Besides which, 
the principal Greek merchants who traded with the island 
and were living at Constantinople were decapitated by 
order of the sultan. 

Here is a description of the Scio massacre, drawn from 
an account written not long after it took place, by Miss 
Sedgwick : — 


‘For a long time, after the war between Turkey and Greece 
broke out, Scio took no part in the contest. The Turkish 
dominion was less felt there than in the rest of Greece. The 
island lies almost under the shadow of the Asiatic coast. It . 
has a rich soil, and in its happy days it was so highly cultivated, 
so loaded with fruit and so beautiful with flowers, that it was 
described as ‘an island of gardens.’ It had schools and colleges 
well endowed, and its upper classes, both of men and women, 
were as well educated and accomplished as other members of 
European good society. The Sciots had wealth, for they 


74. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


carried on an extensive commerce. They had resident mer. 
chants in all the great commercial towns of Europe. They 
carried on nearly all the trade between Greece and the Turkish 
cities of Smyrna and Constantinople. They had more to 
hazard in a war than their fellow-countrymen. 

‘“They were allowed some privileges of local government; 
and their affairs were managed mildly and prudently by a coun- 
cil of elders. In May, 1821, however, when the standard of 
the Hetairiz was raised at Jassy, a small squadron of Ipsariots 
(patriotic Greeks) appeared off their coast. The Turkish Aga 
(or colonel), the military governor, immediately resorted to 
measures that had been taken in other Greek islands; he 
seized about forty elders and bishops and shut them up in 
the castle, as hostages for the general good conduct of the 
people. He brought also to his aid troops from Asia Minor, 
and did not discountenance their depredations on the wealthier 
inhabitants. The people were stung to madness by the excesses 
of these troops, and an attempt was made to rouse them to 
resistance ; but it was hard to light the fire that was to sweep 
over their own homes and gardens. They were still hesitating 
when two insurrectionists from Samos, with a small band of 
followers, landed on their shores. The elders in vain urged the 
peasantry not to join them. The Aga doubled the number of 
his hostages. He expected further aid from Asia Minor; the 
Sciots looked for the help of the Greek fleet. 

“ Their hope was vain. On April 22, 1822,a Turkish fleet of 
fifty sail moored in the bay and began to bombard the chief 
town. The Sciots were deserted by the Samians, who had 
prompted them to rebellion. 

‘““Scio became the scene of indescribable horrors. The male 
inhabitants were massacred ; their houses were plundered and 
burned, — not one was left standing, except such as belonged to 
foreign consuls. 

‘Three days were passed in sacking the city; then the Turks 
spread themselves all over the island. The following letter is 
from the pen of an eyewitness who escaped. He says: ‘Oh, 
God! what a spectacle did Scio present upon this memorable 
occasion! On whatever side I cast my eyes nothing but pil- 
lage, murder, and conflagation appeared. While some were 
occupied in plundering the villas of the rich merchants, and 
others in setting fire to the villages, the air was rent with the 
mingled groans of men, women, and children, who were falling 
under the swords and daggers of the infidels. The only excep- 


— —a 


TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. 75 


tion during the massacre was of young women and boys, who 
were preserved to be afterwards sold as slaves. Many of these 
young women, whose husbands had been butchered, were run- 
ning to and fro, frantic, with torn garments, dishevelled hair, 
pressing their trembling infants to their breasts, and seeking 
death as a relief from the fate that awaited them.’ Ten days 
were given to slaughter. Gardeners and work-people, who had 
been seized and carried on board Turkish ships, on the suppo- 
sition that they would reveal the hiding-place of hidden treasure, 
were, to the number of five hundred, hung. This was the signal 
for the execution of the hostages in the citadel. The prisoners 
were for the most part sold in Smyrna or Constantinople; but 
on June 19 an order came to the slave-market of Constantinople 
for the cessation of the sale. The Island of Scio had been 
granted many years before as an appanage to one of the sul- 
tanas. From it she derived a fixed revenue, and a title to inter- 
fere inall matters relating to police or to internal administration. 
This patroness, at the time of the massacre, was Asma, sister 
of the sultan, who received about two hundred thousand piastres 
a year besides casual presents from her flourishing little prov- 
ince. When she was informed of its destruction, her indigna- 
tion was excessive. Her anger was chiefly directed against the 
officers in command, — Valid Pasha, who was in charge of the 
citadel, and the Capitan Pasha, or chief admiral, to whose con- 
duct she chiefly attributed her misfortune. In vain the Capitan 
Pasha selected from his captives sixty young and beautiful 
maidens, whom he presented for the service of her Highness. 
She rejected the offering with disdain, and continued her remon- 
strances against the injustice and illegality of reducing free sons 
and daughters of the soil to slavery, and exposing them for sale 
in the slave-markets. The sultan, at length, yielded to her im- 
portunities. The permission for such brutalities was revoked ; 
and it is pleasant to think that this unlooked-for humanity was 
due to the exertions of a woman!” 


This account of Scio by Miss Sedgwick precedes the history 
of a young girl named Maritza, who, with her boy-brother and 
her mother, was dragged from a hiding-place by the soldiers. 
The mother was a lady of high rank in the island. They 
passed into the hands of a slave-merchant, who sent them 
to Alexandria. Here the boy, who had provoked his 
master by obstinately refusing to renounce his Christian 


76 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


faith, was murdered in cold blood before his mother’s eyes. 
Mother and daughter were then offered at an enormous 
price to the sister of Ibrahim Pasha. As they waited in the 
anteroom of that great lady, they were seen and com- 
miserated by two young travelling Englishmen. Finding 
that the princess would not pay the slave-merchant his 
price, these gentlemen clubbed together their resources, 
and bought the women. What became of the mother I 
do not know; but one of the gentlemen, having become 
the sole possessor of Maritza, sent her to his mother in 
England to receive an education. He married her when 
she was seventeen years old. She was very accomplished, 
exquisitely beautiful, and made a sensation in London 
society. Her husband, however, took her back to 
Alexandria, where she died a year and a half after of the 
plague. 

I cannot tell here the long story of the struggle between 
the Greeks and Turks, which lasted for eight years, and 
enlisted the warmest sympathies of Christendom. ‘The 
narrative is the same thing over and over again. It tells 
of Turks defeated when sometimes ten, sometimes twenty 
to one, of bravery, of love of country, of desperate valor, 
and generally of the success of the Greeks, which led to 
nothing for want of statesmanship. The Greek partisan 
leaders seem to have been little amenable to any govern- 
ment or authority. The most brilliant deeds were done by 
the Greek fleet under Frank Hastings and Lord Cochrane, 
— English naval officers (who forfeited their commissions 
to join the insurgents), and by Kanaris, a Greek is- 
lander, whose daring exploits with fire-ships again and 
again discomfited the Turkish fleets. Marco Bozzaris, who 
perished in 1823 in an attack on the camp of a Turkish 
general, owes his immortal fame chiefly to the pen of an 
American poet. In 1823 Lord Byron gave his fortune and 
his life to the cause of the Greeks. Rousing himself from 
the cw dono lethargy of his life in Italy, he came forward 
as a statesman and a soldier in a cause which had his 


TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. 77 


fullest sympathy, and he drew after him the sympathies of 
the civilized world. He was bitterly disappointed, how- 
ever, on reaching Missolonghi, to find how divided and 
incapable of civil government were the Greeks themselves. 
If he had lived it is quite possible he might have been made 
king of Greece at the close of the revolution; but worn 
out by worries and malarial fever, he died a few months 
after reaching the Morea. Doctor Howe, of Boston, who 
reached Missolonghi in April, 1824, — the day after Byron’s 
death, — said that the place seemed as if covered by a pall. 
The loss sustained by Greece in the death of the great 
English poet was counterbalanced by the new prospects that 
opened for her on the death of the Emperor Alexander. 
Nicholas was eager to make himself her protector, and three 
months after his brother’s death, he declared war against 
Turkey on the ground that the stipulations of the Treaty of 
Bucharest had never been fulfilled. Mr. Canning, the Eng- 
lish prime minister, — moved at once by his own generous 
feelings, and a sense that Russia must not be left to espouse 
the cause of Greek Christians alone, lest they should learn 
to look upon her as their only friend, — persuaded France 
and Austria to join England and Russia in an agreement 
to make Turkey acknowledge the partial independence of 
Greece. | 

Strange to say, Sultan Mahmoud chose this time for the 
annihilation of his great corps of Janissaries, on whom the 
power of his empire had for centuries seemed to rest. 

As the sultans had grown more effeminate after the mid- 
dle of the seventeenth century, the Janissaries grew more 
insolent and more and more powerful. Several sultans 
were murdered by them, or had been set aside. Indeed, 
what the Preetorian Guards became in the later Roman 
Empire, the Janissaries aspired to be under the later 
sultans. 

Sultan Mahmoud, from the opening of his reign, had 
aimed to be a reforming sultan. Especially he desired to 
break up the power of the Janissaries by abolishing their 


78 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


old dress, arms, privileges, and customs, and introducing 
among them the discipline of the armies of Western 
Europe. His reforms were so unpopular that he was called 
the Giaour Sultan. His idea was to Europeanize his people, 
beginning with his army. Mehemet Ali had introduced the 
dress and drill of Europeans into the Egyptian army, under 
the superintendence of French officers, and Sultan Mahmoud 
considered the experiment a success. 

The Janissaries, being an immense body of men, were 
distributed all through the Turkish Empire ; for, after twenty 
years of service, they were allowed to marry, and engage in 
various trades and occupations. ‘They had been highly 
exasperated by the very meagre success of the Turkish 
arms against the Greeks; and Mahmoud expected opposi- 
tion among them to his new plans. At first he demanded 
only a small contingent from each regiment to wear the 
new dress, and to adopt the new drill. They consented, 
but finding their privileges further encroached upon (for 
indeed the plan of the sultan and his war minister Hussein 
Pasha was to drive them into rebellion), they broke out into 
open revolt in Constantinople June 14, 1826. ‘The sultan 
was fully prepared for this. He sent for the Green Stand- 
ard of the Prophet, which all true Mussulmans must follow, 
and planted it in the courtyard of his palace. The Janis- 
saries were then driven into their own barracks, which were 
set on fire, and every one who attempted to escape was 
shot down. ‘Thousands were seized and executed through- 
out the empire. Those who could, sought safety in exile. 
The corps was abolished, and Mahmoud was left with no 
soldiers but ill-disciplined new recruits, awkward and half- 
hearted. He had destroyed Turkish customs, outraged 
Turkish feelings, and now by the massacre of the Janissaries 
had sapped Turkish strength. After this he set at nought 
in his own person the precepts of the Koran. All day he 
worked with frenzy, at night he indulged himself in frightful 
orgies, till, dead drunk, he desisted from his madness and 
slaves bore him to his bed. It was in those days that a 


TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS, 79 


Frenchman of distinction dined with him, and the sultan 
having promised to grant him any favor he might ask, the 
guest had the bad taste to request to see the most beautiful 
woman in the seraglio. ‘The sultan bowed, and gave an 
order; the feast went on, when presently a slave entered 
bearing a silver salver covered with a cloth. He was sent 
round to the French guest, who, lifting the veil, saw to his 
horror the bleeding head of a beautiful woman, while the 
sultan calmly assured him that living no member of his 
harem could be seen. 

Sultan Mahmoud, finding that the Greeks were victorious, 
that the Russians were invading Bulgaria, and preparing to 
carry their arms into Armenia, while the massacre and dis- 
persion of the Janissaries had just deprived him of a hun- 
dred thousand fighting men, bent all his energies to the 
formation of a new army. He collected European officers 
to train his Nizam, the name given to his young recruits, 
who were beardless boys for the most part; for the sultan 
and his Divan dreaded disaffection, and preferred to recruit 
inexperienced youths, who would more readily adopt the 
Christian dress and discipline. 

He also called to his aid Ibrahim Pasha, the brave adopted 
son of his powerful vassal, Mehemet Ali; and he again 
issued a decree of total extermination against the Greeks, 
which the ambassadors of the European Powers could not 
prevail upon him to recall. He besides ordered all the 
olive groves and fruit trees in the Morea to be cut down. 
The atrocities committed in southern Greece by the troops 
of Ibrahim Pasha so shocked the sensibilities of Christen- 
dom that a combined English, French, and Russian fleet, 
under the command of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, 
was sent into Greek waters to check, if possible, the Egyp- 
tian cruelties. Finding that this could not be done without 
attacking the Turkish fleet, Sir Edward Codrington did so, 
without any preliminary declaration of war between Eng- 
land and Turkey, and fought the brilliant battle of Navarino 
October 20, 1826. His government was not entirely satis- 


80 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


fied with this exploit. It did not disavow him, but he was 
never again employed, and Western governments have since 
come to consider that the destruction of the Turkish fleet 
was a great political mistake. 

Mahmoud was furious at this interference with his policy 
of vengeance, and his sovereignty. In 1827 the Greeks 
formed a provisional government and. placed at its head 
Capo d’Istrias, the private secretary of the Russian em- 
peror. Ibrahim Pasha, having lost his fleet, had to suffer 
his troops to be carried back to Egypt in English vessels. 

Russia, resolved on enforcing the stipulations of the Treaty 
of Bucharest by the invasion of Turkey, sent Diebitsch with 
twenty thousand men into Bulgaria, where he laid siege to the 
important strongholds of Silistria, Brailow, and Varna, which 
guarded the high-road to Constantinople ; while Paskievitch, 
with another army, made a brilliant campaign in Armenia. 

At the outbreak of the struggle it was supposed it would 
be pitiably unequal. ‘Turkey had been weakened in every 
way, and the southern frontier of Russia gleamed with more 
than two hundred thousand bayonets and sabres. But the 
world did not know then, as it has known since 1855 and 
1877, that Turkish troops behind stone walls are very nearly 
invincible. The defence of Brailow was magnificent. It 
lasted twenty-seven days, and cost the Russians between 
four thousand and five thousand men, among them four 
generals. The garrison capitulated at last on the most 
honorable terms. 

The successes of the Turks at Shumla were such that 
operations against that place were reduced to a distant and 
imperfect blockade. But Varna, which is situated on the 
shores of the Black Sea, was besieged both by a Russian 
fleet and a Russian army. In the first attack the Russians 
lost three hundred men; “and a cartful of infidel heads 
was sent to Constantinople; for the Turks had not yet 
learned, as they did later, to content themselves with the 
salted ears of their enemies as trophies.”’ ! 


1 Harper’s Magazine, vol. lvi. 


TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. 8I 


After a siege of eighty-seven days, in which the Russians 
lost six thousand men, and fired eight thousand shells, and 
while eight thousand of the garrison were still under arms, 
confident of success, and as unshaken in courage as ever, a 
parley took place. ‘There were secret negotiations between 
General Diebitsch and Jussef Pasha the Turkish commander, 
and the parley brought about a surrender. 

A large Turkish force, however, was still guarding the 
highway to Constantinople, and was little more than four 
hours’ march from Varna. The Emperor Nicholas came 
himself to animate his troops, and to superintend their 
‘military operations. In spite of the czar’s presence his 
army met with very little success. ‘The sickly season came 
on. ‘Thousands of the Russians died, or were in hospital. 
The Russians in this campaign of 1828 fought two or three 
minor battles, took Brailow, Varna, and several smaller 
forts, but they had failed before Silistria and Shumla. They 
recrossed the Danube at the beginning of winter. ‘The 
sword, sickness, and hardships had cost them the lives of 
forty thousand men. Considering their superiority in num- 
bers, armament, and organization the campaign had proved 
a failure and a humiliation rather than a triumph.” 

In May of the following year Diebitsch with a large 
force resumed operations against Silistria. The siege 
dragged slowly on, until, two fresh armies of Russians coming 
up, the Turks were forced to give battle in the open. 
Even then the fate of war remained for some time unde- 
cided ; but at last a storm of Russian shot spread panic 
among the irregular troops (who were the strength of the 
Turkish army) and dispersed the Nizam, or youthful Turks 
recruited to supply the place of the Janissaries. The entire 
army dissolved, and escaped, as it is said, ‘ with the dexterity 
of a rabble.” This battle, called Kalewtscha, decided the 
campaign, and Diebitsch, leaving the fortress of Silistria 
still untaken in his rear, prepared to cross the Balkans, and 


to march on Constantinople. On Aug. 20 he was in pos- 
6 


82 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


session of Adrianople, one hundred and twenty miles from 
the Ottoman capital. 

Meantime, though the sultan showed no signs of fear, 
Constantinople was in a tumult. The populace threatened 
to restore the Janissaries ; the foreign ambassadors trembled 
lest Russia should obliterate Turkey, and destroy the 
balance of power in Europe. England especially was im- 
perative for peace. With tears of rage and shame Mah- 
moud signed the Treaty of Adrianople, giving up Greece, 
paying heavy indemnities, and perhaps saving the Russian 
army ; for Diebitsch, who had begun the campaign with 
one hundred and forty-two thousand men, had so suffered 
by war, sickness, and other hardships that he had but 
twenty-one thousand with him at Adrianople. 

But the treaty by no means satisfied the aspirations of 
the Greek people. The new kingdom of Greece was 
formed with very restricted boundaries. Above all, the 
islands of the Archipelago, and Crete, and Cyprus, were 
given back to their Ottoman rulers. A monarchy was 
established, and the crown was offered to Prince Leopold, 
the widowed husband of the English princess Charlotte. 
After some hesitation he refused it, saying he foresaw that 
the Greeks would never be satisfied with a boundary so re- 
stricted as that which his obligations to the Treaty would 
compel him to maintain. In this decision he was guided 
by the advice of his friend Baron Stockmar, but Leopold 
is believed to have long regretted it. 

The crown of Greece was finally accepted for Prince 
Otho of Bavaria, a minor, a Roman Catholic, a heavy lad 
without talent or vivacity, and a scion of a house afflicted 
with insanity. He was entirely out of sympathy with the 
nation he was called upon to govern, became very un- 
popular, and of his own free will abdicated in 1863, after 
enduring sovereignty for thirty-one years. 

The liberation of Greece was in some sort payment of 
the debt of gratitude that Europe and America owe to that 
diminutive but glorious country, the birthplace of the poetry, 


TURKS, RUSSIANS, AND GREEKS. ake 


the political science, the fine arts, and the philosophy of 
the civilized world. In the war of independence, Greek 
heroes, such as Kanaris and Marco Bozzaris, did deeds not 
unworthy of warriors in the ancient world ; but that, alas! 
was all. Every man seems to have fought for his own 
hand, and to have been as ready to find an enemy ina 
Greek as in a Turk, if that Greek or his interests were 
opposed to him. 

The resurrection of Greece forms a brilliant episode in 
modern history, and if she is sometimes reproached be- 
cause sixty years of liberty have passed over her without 
any indications of vitality beyond the changes everywhere 
brought about by the world-wide advance of science and 
civilization, we must remember that with her restricted 
limits, her national poverty, her impoverished soil, it would 
be unjust to expect she should at once renew the age of 
Pericles. Of late years, under her present king, George of 
Denmark, — who, standing in his court with his fair locks, 
presents a strange contrast to his swarthy, dark-haired 
courtiers, — she has made great advances in education, in 
credit, and in material civilization. Nevertheless, her best 
possessions are still the remains of Homer’s language, and 
the ruins she has inherited from the Greece that was once 
the glory of the world. 

‘We must at all risks maintain the integrity of the 
Ottoman Empire” has been long a maxim of European 
diplomacy. “I decline to argue with any man,” said Mr. 
Pitt, ““who does not see that in the interests of England 
the Ottoman Empire must be preserved.” 

It is said that when Alexander and Napoleon were in- 
timate friends, they discussed together the division of 
Turkey, but Napoleon insisted that France must have 
Constantinople, Syria, and Egypt, which was not satisfactory 
to the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon from his earliest 
years had a craving for the empire of the East, and said 
at St. Helena that had not Sir Sidney Smith repulsed him at 
Acre he would have been seated on the Byzantine throne. 


84. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


In 1830, after the formation of the kingdom of Greece, 
Turkey, in Europe and Asia (not counting the countries 
which paid her tribute along the northern coast of Africa), 
consisted of two hundred and eighty-eight thousand square 
miles of territory, inhabited by seventeen millions of people. 
The same amount of territory in western Europe was inhab- 
ited by ninety-seven millions. ‘This was a powerful argu- 
ment for those who wished to see the garden of the earth 
opened to modern civilization; but over and over again 
the question rose: Drive the Turks out of Europe, and who 
shall have Constantinople? 


CLUME TE hae 
THE CZAR NICHOLAS. 


Ja\ GREAT difficulty presents itself to those who desire to 

understand any subject relating to Russia or its impe- 
rial family; for while the world looks upon Russia as a 
seething mass of misery and corruption, and holds her 
imperial ruler responsible for this state of things, all per- 
sons brought into personal contact with this terrible auto- 
crat and his household find them (from Alexander I. down 
to the present day) persons who command respect, — with 
noble qualities that from time to time conspicuously shine 
forth as occasion offers, and with every-day household vir- 
tues such as make the whole world kin. 

When the struggle of all Europe with Napoleon was over, 
the Grand Duke Nicholas started on a tour to foreign 
courts and foreign countries. He visited England during 
the year of Princess Charlotte’s brief married happiness, 
and Stockmar, writing at that period, said : — 


“ He is taller than Leopold, without being thin, and straight as 
apine. His features are extremely regular, the forehead hand- 
some and open, eyebrows finely arched, nose particularly hand- 
some, mouth well-shaped, and chin finely chiselled. There is an 
air of great self-reliance about him, but at the same time a 
manifest absence of pretension.” 


On his return to Russia he married the princess who had 
been selected for him by his family, and never were hus- 
band and wife more devoted to each other. She was 
Princess Maria Charlotte of Prussia, daughter of King 
Frederick William II., and of his charming queen, Louise, 


86 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


whose memory is so dear to her descendants and to all 
Germany. As the wife of every Russian sovereign must 
adopt the Orthodox faith of which her husband is the head, 
it seems to be the custom of these ladies, on their baptism, 
to take the name of Marie Feodorovna,! a practice which 
makes it somewhat hard to distinguish them. Thus the 
uncle of Alexander II. was the old emperor William of 
Germany. Alexander II. and the emperor Frederick were 
first cousins, and the present emperor of Germany, Wil- 
liam II., and the emperor of Russia, Alexander III., are 
second cousins. 

We have seen in a former chapter how on the death 
of Alexander I. the Grand Duke Nicholas, then at St. 
Petersburg, had his elder brother Constantine proclaimed 
emperor and caused the oath of allegiance to him to be 
taken by the Council and the army. But no sooner was 
this done than a sealed packet was presented to him, con- 
taining Constantine’s resignation of his right of succession. 
Messengers had already been despatched to Constantine at 
Warsaw, who brought back his reiterated refusal to ascend 
the Russian throne.- He even went so far as to return 
unopened letters addressed to him as his Majesty the 
emperor of Russia, saying that he was not the person they 
were intended for. 

On Dec. 24, 1825, the Grand Duke Nicholas consented 
to accept the sceptre, and to date his accession to the 
throne from the day of the death of his brother Alexander. 
On the next day the great officers of State and the Holy 
Synod took the oath of allegiance to him. The next day 
the army was to do the same thing; but unfortunately the 
common soldiers had not had it made clear to them that 
Constantine, to whom they had taken the oath two weeks 
before, had declined to be their emperor. 

There was at that moment a vast conspiracy extending 
all over Russia to depose the dynasty of the Romanoffs and 
set up a new dynasty pledged to govern as constitutional 
sovereigns. Some men of true patriotism were concerned 


1 Nicholas not being czarevitch, his bride was baptized Alexandra 


THE CZAR NICHOLAS. 87 


in this conspiracy, but its active members seem to have 
been of the same stuff as modern nihilists. 

When the Romanoffs, in 1613, were chosen rulers of 
Russia by an assembly of nobles, there was a rival candi- 
date, Prince’ Troubetskoi. It was the representative of 
this family who was now placed at the head of the con- 
spiracy ; but he was not unscrupulous enough to serve the 
purpose of his followers, and when the time for action came 
he kept himself in the background. ‘The uncertainty that 
attended the order of succession, the hesitation of Nicholas, 
and the distance of Constantine from the scene of action 
made the moment seem propitious to the conspirators. 
Agents went among the soldiers, and proclaimed that 
Nicholas was about to thrust himself into his brother’s 
place, and that the vengeance of Constantine would fall on 
all who aided and abetted the usurper. By the morning of 
December 26, the conspirators had succeeded in drawing 
over to their side three regiments of household troops in 
garrison at St. Petersburg. ‘These were marched into the 
great square of St. Isaac, and stationed behind the eques- 
trian statue of Peter the Great. An immense crowd assem- 
bled round them, composed largely of sympathizers anxious 
to vindicate the supposed rights of the absent Constantine. 
Men went among them rousing their indignation and 
enthusiasm, some even representing that they had just come 
from Warsaw, where they had witnessed the arrest of the 
Grand Dukes Constantine and Michael. 

Meantime Nicholas was busy in the Winter Palace, where 
the oath was being administered to about thirteen thousand 
soldiers, the remaining troops in garrison at St. Peters- 
burg. On learning what was passing in the great square, 
he ordered several regiments to face the rioters; then he 
rode forth surrounded by his generals and staff, and con- 
fronted the insurgents. 


“ At this moment an officer was seen to gallop from the midst 
of the disaffected regiments, his right hand thrust into the breast 
of his uniform. As he approached, the emperor advanced to 


88 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


meet him; and when they had arrived at a sword’s length from 
each other Nicholas enquired, ‘What do you bring me?’ 
The officer met the emperor’s steady gaze; his hand moved 
convulsively under his uniform; he turned his horse, and with- 
out saying a word rode back to his associates. Said he, ‘ The 
czar looked at me with such a terrible glance that I could not 
kill him.’ . . . Nicholas seems to have been anxious to avoid 
shedding the blood of his subjects. He requested General 
Miloradovitch, governor-general of St. Petersburg, to address 
the rebels. He did so, but his voice was drowned in shouts of 
‘Long live the Emperor Constantine!’ . . . At the same moment 
one of the revolutionary leaders rode up to the old general and 
discharged his pistol. He fell mortally wounded. He had been 
called the Murat of Russia, and had escaped the shafts of 
death in fifty-six battlefields.” } 


Still Nicholas seemed anxious to avoid bloodshed. He 
ordered his cavalry to charge, but the crowd was immovable. 
He then ordered up his cannon, and volley after volley 
crashed into the dense mass of the insurgents. ‘The crowd 
fled across the frozen waters of the Neva. 

At six o’clock on the evening of this memorable day 
Nicholas re-entered the Winter Palace. He found the 
empress bathed in tears and trembling with terror. 
Indeed, she never recovered the shock her nerves had 
received on this occasion. 

The emperor had dared the most imminent danger, had 
exhibited the utmost intrepidity, and had achieved a decisive 
victory over a powerful and dangerous conspiracy. 

All particulars of the conspiracy were revealed by Trou- 
betskoi, who, when he made his confession, fell at the 
emperor’s feet and asked for life. It was granted, with the 
scornful remark from Nicholas, “If you have the courage 
to support a life dishonored thus, I grant it. But it is all 
I promise.” 

The next morning the emperor, accompanied by only 
one aide-de-camp, reviewed his troops. The soldiers who 
had revolted in favor of Constantine were treated with 


1 S. M. Schumucker’s History of Nicholas I. of Russia. 


THE CZAR NICHOLAS. 89 


great clemency. Not so the revolutionary leaders and 
instigators of the conspiracy. Among these was Pestal, 
who, on the eve of execution, wrote the march that bears 
his name. Yet Nicholas showed kindness to his family, and 
promoted his brother to be his aide-de-camp. 

A very remarkable document is in existence called the 
Will of Peter the Great. Its authenticity in its present 
form is doubtful, but the existence of some such document 
containing advice to his successors is indubitable. Podewils 
reported to the great Frederick, while prime minister, that 
the Russian envoy at Berlin had told him of a paper in 
which future Russian emperors were counselled to maintain 
friendship with Prussia. A Pole subsequently gave to 
Frederick William, in 1798, a memorandum concerning the 
Will of Peter the Great, written after the perusal of the 
original document, which he had seen in the Russian 
archives. 

In 1812 this “ plan”’ of Peter the Great was published 
in Paris in a newspaper, by Lasur, a clerk in the French 
Foreign Office. Some persons think that the memorandum 
of the Pole was cooked by Lasur to suit the views of the: 
Emperor Napoleon, who was then on the eve of his Russian, 
campaign; others, from internal evidence, maintain its, 
authenticity. Be that as it may, it is said that Nicholas, as 
grand duke and as czar, received it as a message from his. 
great ancestor; and he certainly adopted its advice, which. 
may be summed up as follows : — 

Peter begins by a prophetic declaration that as western: 
Europe has repeatedly in the past found itself obliged to. 
submit to swarming races from the East, so Russia, in the: 
progress of the world’s evolution, would eventually possess, 
all Europe, such being her manifest destiny and part of 
the scheme of Providence. Therefore he advises : — 


1. That Russia should be always at war with some people or 
peoples on her frontier, in order that her armies may be kept in 
a state of efficiency. 

2. That foreigners of distinction, especially military officers 


gO RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


should be encouraged to settle in Russia, and to take service 
there. 

3. That no chance should be lost of taking part in the dis- 
putes of other European powers. 

4. That Russian agents should intrigue in foreign courts and 
with the legislatures of other peoples on behalf of Russian 
interests. 

5. That Sweden (then owning Finland) should be despoiled 
of territory. 

6. That Russian princes should seek wives in Germany. 

7. That England should be propitiated in view of commercial 
advantages. 

8. That the frontier of Russia should be everywhere extended ; 
north along the Baltic, south to the shores of the Mediterranean. 

9. That Russia should never cease to desire the acquisition 
of Constantinople, and the commerce of India; also that she 
should aim to establish herself on the Persian Gulf. 

10. That everything should be done to cement a firm alliance 
with Austria, but at the same time that Austria’s strength should 
be sapped by fomenting dissatisfaction among her various 
peoples. 

11, That Austria should be reconciled to the Russian acquisi- 
tion of Constantinople, or, if that were impossible, should be 
debarred from interference by being drawn into a European 
war. 

12. That the Greeks should be taken everywhere under the 
protection of Russia. 

13, That when Sweden, Poland, and Turkey should be all 
made Russian, overtures should be made to France and Austria 
to share with Russia the dominion of the world. lf either 
declined, Russia should find some pretext for a quarrel, the issue 
of which could not be doubtful, as she would then be mistress 
of the East and the best part of Europe. 

14. lf both France and Austria should reject these overtures 
Russia should invade Germany, sweep the coasts of the Mediter- 
ranean and the Atlantic with her fleets, and simultaneously 
overrun France and Germany. When these countries should 
be fully conquered the rest would fall easily and without a 
struggle. 


Such is the policy which, whether shadowed out or not 
by Peter the Great, has been apparently in the main the 


THE CZAR NICHOLAS. Ol 


policy of his successors ; and of late years state secrets have 
come to light which enable us to see how the Emperor 
Nicholas had laid to heart his ancestor’s advice in the 13th 
clause of his testamentary document, and how in the last 
years of Charles X. of France he labored to effect with him 
an alliance which should further his designs upon Con- 
stantinople. 

Count Pozzo di Borgo was a Corsican, and we might call 
him a statesman of fortune. He cherished an hereditary 
enmity to the Bonapartes, especially to Napoleon, with 
whom, when Corsica became French in 1797, he had a 
personal quarrel, and decided to seek advancement in other 
countries. 

After various experiences as a diplomatist in the service 
of England and Austria, he attached himself in 1811 to the 
Emperor Alexander, and for many years after the Restora- 
tion was the Russian ambassador in Paris at the courts of 
Louis XVIII. and his successor. He tried to marry the 
Grand Duchess Anna, sister of the Emperor Alexander, to 
the Duc de Berry; but the negotiation was not successful, 
as the lady would not change her religion. 

The Emperor Alexander, not long before his death, fore- 
saw that there must be war in the end between Turkey and 
Russia, arising out of the affairs of Greece ; and as sucha 
war need not be considered by the world to be prompted 
by sympathy with revolution, he suggested to the govern- 
ment of Charles X. that, if France would support him in the 
acquisition and retention of Constantinople, he would repay 
the service by any return that could be pointed out to him. 
Nothing further passed till after the battle of Navarino, 
three years later, when the French government — treach- 
erous to its allies — proposed to the Emperor Nicholas a 
scheme of alliance, ‘“‘involving not only the partition of 
Turkey, but the reconstruction of the map of Europe, from 
which Holland and Saxony were to be erased as independent 
kingdoms.” ! 

} Edinburgh Review, 1892. 


Q2 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


The proposition had not been received at St. Petersburg, 
however, when news reached Paris that the war of 1828 
between Russia and Turkey had been abruptly concluded by 
the Peace of Adrianople. Had the engagement been carried 
out, France offered to acquiesce in the acquisition by Rus- 
sia of a large part of Turkey, while she herself was to obtain 
Belgium, Luxembourg, and the frontier of the Rhine. 
Prussia was to be propitiated by the annexation of Saxony 
and Holland; Austria, by receiving Servia, Bosnia, and 
Herzegovina ; while it was hoped England would give her 
consent if bribed by the offer of the Dutch colonies. It is 
not certain that this scheme provided for the possession of 
Constantinople by the czar. It is thought likely that the 
intention may have been to form a small weak empire of 
Greece, with Constantinople as its capital. But such 
schemes and negotiations were defeated by the follies com- 
mitted by Charles X., which brought on a revolution. 

Until the papers of Count Pozzo di Borgo were recently 
published, it had always seemed to the world as if the rage 
of the Emperor Nicholas, on learning the elevation of Louis 
Philippe, had been. excessive and unreasonable. We see 
now that it ruined his schemes. He massed his troops for 
an immediate war with France; and thus it happened that 
the Revolution in Poland in 1830 found him prepared to 
crush it at once. 

In vain Louis Philippe attempted to secure from the 
Emperor Nicholas recognition as a brother-sovereign. The 
czar remained haughty and irreconcilable, and it was not 
until four months after Louis Philippe was seated on the 
French throne that Pozzo di Borgo, as Russian ambassador at 
Paris, was permitted to present him his credentials. 

The Treaty of Adrianople was followed, four years later, by 
the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi. By the:Treaty of Adrianople 
Turkey was to pay Russia about thirty million dollars in- 
demnity, and give up to her the command of the mouths of 
the Danube, together with certain territory bordering on the 
Black Sea. Wallachia and Moldavia were to become auto- 


THE CZAR NICHOLAS. 93 


nomous principalities, paying only a small tribute to the 
sultan, who thenceforward was to possess no fortresses on 
the northern bank of the Danube; nor was any Moslem to 
hold property there. Sultan Mahmoud is said to have 
wept and torn his beard with rage as he signed these hard 
terms, which he would probably have resisted had he 
known the condition of Diebitsch’s army, reduced by sick- 
ness to twenty thousand men. 

Subsequently, in 1833 and 1834, when the power of the 
Porte was threatened by the victories of Ibrahim Pasha, 
Russia stepped forward as the sultan’s friend and _ pro- 
tector. Nicholas considered that no one should threaten 
Constantinople but himself. This alliance between the 
sultan and the czar was cemented by a new treaty, signed 
June 26, 1833, containing a secret clause, which converted 
the Black Sea into a Russian lake, and caused great indigna- - 
tion in western Europe when its existence was discovered. 
By this secret article of the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi the 
straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were opened to 
the fleets of Russia, and closed to those of all other na- 
tions. The czar posed before Europe as the generous ally 
and confidential friend of the sultan, who was expected 
thenceforward to walk by Russian advice in the administra- 
tion of his government, and to abandon his confidence in 
England. It was a conspiracy not unlike that in the history 
of the two showmen recorded in ‘ Master Humphrey’s 
Clock,” where little Nell was exhorted to discover that 
Codlin was her friend, and not Short. 

Before Nicholas in 1828 marched his armies on to 
Turkish soil he had tested their endurance and their disci- 
pline in a war with Persia. In this war General Paskievitch 
won his laurels, and at the close of it he was enabled to 
harangue his soldiers thus: ‘ Brave comrades, you have con- 
quered in this campaign two provinces, taken eight stand- 
ards, fifty guns, two sirdars, twenty khans, six thousand 
prisoners in arms, ten thousand who had cast them away, 
and great stores of provisions. Such are your trophies!” 


94 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


I fancy very few of us have any clear ideas as to the geo- 
graphical relations of Russia, Turkey, and Persia. Between 
the Euxine and the Caspian seas is a wide strip of land 
including several states and provinces, which is commonly 
known to us by the name of the Caucasus. Upon the 
inhabitants of this land Russia has been making war during 
the whole of the present century, thus keeping her armies 
actively employed on her frontier, according to the views of 
Peter the Great. The countries included in this strip of 
territory are Georgia, Circassia, Mingrelia, Daghestan, 
Russian Armenia, and Shirvan, and Karabaugh. Georgia 
was acquired by Russia in 1802. Its last hereditary prince 
died in St. Petersburg not many yearsago. Circassia became 
Russian in 1829. Mingrelia, whose hereditary prince (now 
a Russian nobleman) was the candidate recently supported 
by Russia for the throne of Bulgaria, was acquired in 1804 ; 
Daghestan in 1813; Shirvan at the same time; Karabaugh, 
by the Treaty of Adrianople, was made Russianein 1828; 
and Russian Armenia became Russian the same year. But 
though Russia nominally holds sway over these provinces 
she wages perpetual war upon the people who inhabit them. 

The mountains of the Caucasus run diagonally through 
these territories. ‘The range, at its northern end, touches 
the Black Sea, at its southern the Caspian. 

To these regions all Russian regiments are sent if they 
are untrained, or are suspected of disaffection, and _ all 
officers who have committed any military offence, or whose 
extravagance or ill-regulated habits have been brought by 
their families to the notice of the emperor. Inthe Caucasus 
they undergo, as it were, a sort of penal military probation. 

The inhabitants of the Caucasus are by some thought to 
be descendants of the Crusaders. Their complexion and 
features are European, their dress and military equipments 
are more medieval than Asiatic, and though Russia nomi- 
nally owns their country, with its mountain pastures and its 
fruitful valleys, they have fought the fight of brave men, and 
to this day are only partially subdued. 


THE CZAR NICHOLAS. 95 


On the accession of the Emperor Nicholas he appointed 
General Paskievitch to command his armies in the Caucasus ; 
but for some time the attention of Paskievitch was too much 
absorbed by a war with Persia, and by the war of 1828 in 
Asia Minor, to give much attention to the mountaineers. 

The war with Turkey being terminated by the Peace of 
Adrianople, Paskievitch had leisure to turn his attention 
more completely to the yet unsubdued Caucasian tribes, 
who refused to pay tribute to his sovereign. But he was 
called away, as we have seen, in 1831 to conduct the Polish 
War, and to succeed General Diebitsch, who had died of 
cholera. 

While Paskievitch was absent in Poland, Schamyl appeared 
as the leader of his people. He had risen from a very 
humble station, but he claimed to have received a mission 
from heaven through Mahomet the Prophet, who had 
assured him he should be invincible in war, and that no 
wound should ever kill him. “ Though it is difficult,” said 
one who knew him,! “ to see clearly through the thick haze 
which shrouds political events among the wild mountains 
and defiles of the Caucasus, we know enough of Schamyl 
to excite our interest, and even our respect for him. By 
paths unknown to European ambition, by dauntless cour- 
age, an austere simplicity, rare self-denial, great firm- 
ness of purpose and promptitude of action, by some 
intrigues, and by many cruelties, he raised himself to a 
position of unexampled authority among his countrymen.” 
The title by which he was known among them was the 
Imam. In alliance with Kasi Mullah, another Circassian 
leader, Schamyl roused all Daghestan, and met with remark- 
able success. But after desperate fighting, one leader of the 
mountaineers was killed, and Schamyl himself was so 
severely wounded that his recovery strengthened the belief 
of his people in his mission as an envoy of the Prophet. 
His forces, which had been dispersed, rallied, not as an 
army, but in innumerable armed bands, and for eighteen 


1 Chambers’ Journal, 1861. 


96 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIX'# CENTURY, 


years the war was carried on, Schamyl and his men hold- 
ing the mountain passes, which commanded large tracts of 
fertile country. The Russians were shut up for the most 
part in forts or in military encampments, which barely kept 
open their communications with St. Petersburg, but they 
were afraid to go beyond the range of their own guns, 
except in large bodies. 

In 1837 the Emperor Nicholas visited the Caucasus with 
a view of striking terror into the hearts of Schamyl and his 
followers ; but the mountaineers were not to be intimidated, 
although the czar put forth a proclamation assuring them 
that he had powder enough to blow up all their mountains. 
But the terrible corruption which permeates all branches of 
the government service in Russia, and which in the Caucasus 
received heroic treatment forty years later at the hands of 
General Skobeleff, was made known to the czar during his 
visit. It excited his indignation, and led to some spasmodic 
attempts at vigorous reform. But even the Autocrat of all 
the Russias is no match for the spirit of corruption pervad- 
ing the bureaucracy in his dominions. 

In 1840, and for three succeeding years, Schamyl gained 
advantages over successive Russian generals. But early in 
1845 General Woronzoff arrived at the seat of war with 
powers more unlimited than had been granted to any Rus- 
sian subject since the days of the Empress Catherine. He 
was, in fact, made autocrat over all the country, from the 
Pruth to the Araxes. He began by attacking Dorgo, the 
stronghold of Schamyl, and took it without difficulty, as it 
was weakly defended; but as his army was retreating 
Schamyl suddenly threw himself upon it with such fury 
that it was annihilated. Only the general, some of his 
officers, and four thousand men escaped. It is proof of the 
magnanimity of the Emperor Nicholas that he shortly after 
raised Woronzoff to the rank of Prince. 

Instead of sending great expeditions against the tribes, 
Woronzoff advised the emperor to. weary them by delay, 
detaching if possible the smaller states by bribes and 


THE CZAR NICHOLAS, Q7 


promises. But the first one that took advantage of such 
offers was nearly annihilated by Schamyl, and defection was 
summarily put an end to.? | 

In 1835 the czar met the king of Prussia on the frontier 
of their dominions under cover of a grand review, but in 
reality to discuss what might be done to extinguish the 
little republic of Cracow, the last remnant of Polish inde- 
pendence. The result of this interview was that at the 
beginning of the next year a requisition was suddenly sent 
to the republic from Russia, Prussia, and Austria, requiring 
the authorities to expel all refugees from those nations 
within eight days, or else recognition of the independence 
of the republic by those three Powers would be withdrawn. 
As the Senate of Cracow begged for delay, Russian and 
Austrian troops marched into the city. The refugees were 
shipped off to America, and foreign troops were perma- 
nently placed in garrison. Cracow has since been annexed 
to the Austro-Polish Province of Galicia, thus setting aside 
one of the arrangements agreed upon by European govern- 
ments at the Congress of Vienna. 

At the close of the month of May, 1844, Queen Victoria 
and Prince Albert were taken by surprise by an announce- 
ment that the emperor of Russia was about to pay them a 
visit. They had only forty-eight hours in which to prepare 
for his arrival. ‘The king of Saxony was at that moment 
staying at Windsor. It was the emperor’s fashion to make 
all his visits thus suddenly. On the night of his arrival in 
London he went to the residence of his ambassador, and 
the next day was escorted by Prince Albert to Buckingham 


1 It may be here added that after this mountain chief had waged 
war twenty-five years, from 1834 1859, with the most distinguished 
generals in the Russian service, and had made the country over 
which he ruled one of the greatest military schools in the world, he 
surrendered, to save the lives of the mere handful of devoted fol- 
lowers who still remained true to him. The Russian government 
assigned him a liberal pension. and a pleasant residence in the town 
of Kalouga: where. until his death, he held friendly social relations 
with the Russian authorities. 


98 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIX7TH CENTURY, 


Palace, where he was presented to Queen Victoria. The 
day following he went to Windsor. The prince, who had 
preceded him, met him at the station, and conducted him 
to the Castle. He was greatly impressed by the palace at 
Windsor and by what he saw of the English court during 
his five days’ stay there. He said that everything seemed 
to move without effort, and as if nothing more than ordi- 
nary were going on. He had come over to England to see 
things for himself, instead of trusting to diplomatists; and 
he had, no doubt, the intention, in his interviews with 
members of the English Cabinet, of feeling his way upon 
the Eastern Question. He did not talk politics to the 
queen, but conversed much with Prince Albert and Lord 
Aberdeen. To almost every one he said in substance: 
“] know that I am taken for an actor, but indeed I am 
not; I am thoroughly straightforward. I say what I mean; 
and what I promise, I fulfil.” 

He had, he said, been all his life desirous to stand well 
with England, and mentioned that when he was a little boy 
his beautiful mother had once taken him to an eminence, 
and pointing to the West had told him that there lay 
the nation beyond seas in whom he should ever seek a 
friend. 

France he openly professed to have no interest in, and 
her opinion he did not care about. To Sir Robert Peel 
he said: “I do not covet an inch of Turkish soil for my- 
self, but neither will I allow any one else to have one.” 

He was exceedingly impressed with Prince Albert, ex- 
pressing to him earnestly his wish that they might one day 
be found on the same side, should Europe be engaged in 
any quarrel. To others he said that he wished he had the 
prince for a son. 

The queen, writing to King Leopold, says of this visit : 

“A great compliment it certainly was, and the people here 
are much flattered by it. The emperor is certainly a very strik- 


ing looking man, still very handsome. His profile is beautiful 
and his manners most dignified and graceful, extremely civil, — 


THE CZAR NICHOLAS. 99 


indeed alarmingly so; he is full of attentions and folztesses. But 
the expression of the eyes is severe, and unlike anything I ever 
saw before. He gives Albert and myself the impression of a 
man who is not happy, and on whom the burthen of his im- 
mense power and position weighs heavily and painfully. He 
seldom smiles, and, when he does, the expression is not a happy 
one. He is very easy to get on with.... He amused the 
king of Saxony and me by saying he was sz embarrassé when 
people were presented to him, and that he felt sz gauche en frac 
(that is, in Plain clothes), which he is certainly quite unaccus- 
tomed to wear.” 


Military uniform had become so habitual to him that 
without it he said he felt “comme si lon m/’avait oté la 
peau.” 

“The two last evenings of his stay,’’ the queen wrote in 
her journal, ‘“‘we had large dinners in uniform, the em- 
peror disliked so being ex /rvac, and was so embarrassed 
about it.”’ 

‘He seemed really and unaffectedly touched,” she adds 
at parting, “‘at his reception and stay, — the simplicity and 
quiet of which told upon his love for domestic life, which 
is very great. At parting he said with much emotion: ‘I 
leave you, madame, with a sad heart, and penetrated by 
your kindness for me. You may be sure, madame, that you 
may count on me at any time as your most devoted servant. 
May God bless you.’ ” 


“ And now,” adds the queen, in another letter to her uncle 
Leopold, ‘I will give you my opinions and feelings on the sub- 
ject, which I may say are Albert’s too. I was extremely against 
the visit, fearing the géze and trouble, and even at first I did 
not feel at all to like it; but by living in the same house to- 
gether quietly and unrestrainedly (and this, Albert says, and with 
great truth, is the advantage of these visits, that I not only see 
these great people, but £zew them) I got to know the emperor, 
and he to know me. There is much about him which I cannot 
help liking, and I think his character is one that should be 
understood and looked upon for once as it is. He is stern and 
severe, with strict principles of duty, which nothing on earth 
will make him change. Very clever I do not think him, and his 


100 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


mind is not acultivated one. His education has been neglected. 
Politics and military concerns are the only things he takes an 
interest in; the arts and all soft occupations he does not care 
for; but he is sincere, I am certain, — sincere even in his most 
despotic acts, — from a sense that it is the only way to govern. 
He is not, I am sure, aware of the dreadful cases of individual 
misery that he often causes; for I can see by various instances 
that he is kept in ignorance of many things which his people 
carry out in most corrupt ways; while he thinks he is extremely 
just. He thinks of general measures, but does n6t look into 
details; and I am sure much never reaches his ears, and, as 
you observe, how can it? ... He asked for nothing whatever. 
He has merely expressed his great desire to be on the best 
terms with us, but not to the exclusion of others. He is very 
much alarmed about the East and about Austria. He is, I 
should say, too frank, for he talks so openly before people, — 
which is what he should not do, — and with difficulty restrains 
himself. His anxiety to be believed is very great; and {| must 
say his personal promises I am inclined to believe. Then his 
feelings are very strong. He feels kindness deeply, and his 
love for his wife and children, — and indeed for all children, — 
is very great. He said when our children were in the room: 
‘Voila les doux moments de notre vie.’ Onecan see by the way 
he takes them up and plays with them that he is very fond of 
children.” 


The queen in her “ Journal” also says: ‘I don’t know 
why, but I can’t help pitying him; and the melancholy 
visible in his countenance made us sad sometimes.” She 
remarks too: ‘* He never takes a drop of wine, and eats 
very little. Albert thinks he is a man inclined to give way 
to passion, which makes him act wrongly often. His ad- 
miration for beauty is very great.” 

In spite of this admiration for beauty noticed by the 
queen, no man was ever more devotedly attached to his 
wife. He was stern to his sons, but chivalrous to his 
daughters. When at one time the Winter Palace was on 
fire, and the safety of his library was threatened, his secre- 
tary rushed to him to know what he should save? ‘ Only 
my portfolio,” said the emperor; “it contains all the let- 
ters that the empress wrote to me before our marriage.” 


THE CZAR NICHOLAS. IOI 


Of the empress the Marquis of Londonderry writes when 
travelling in Russia : — 


““The indescribable majesty of deportment and fascinating 
grace that mark this illustrious personage are very peculiar. 
Celebrated as are all the females connected with the lamented 
and beautiful Queen Louise of Prussia, there are none of them 
more bewitching in manner than the empress of Russia; nor 
is there existing, according to all reports, a more excellent and 
perfect being.” 


The Marquise de Custine speaks of her in equal terms of 
praise. She bore her husband seven children, — four sons 
and three daughters. ‘The sons were the czarevitch, after- 
wards Alexander II., and the Grand Dukes Constantine, 
Michael, and Nicholas; the daughters, the Grand Duchess 
Maria, who married the Duke de Leuchtenburg, grandson - 
of Eugene de Beauharnais ; the Grand Duchess Olga, —a 
beautiful woman, who married the prince royal of Wur- 
temburg ; and Alexandra, who died in 1851, having been 
wife to Prince Frederick of Hesse. The present queen of 
Greece is the granddaughter of the Emperor Nicholas. Her 
father was his son, the Grand Duke Constantine. 

The health of the empress was very delicate. She never 
recovered from the shock her nerves received when her 
husband confronted his mutinous regiments in St. Isaac’s 
Square, immediately after his accession. Her life, too, was 
a very laborious one, being a continual round of receptions, 
balls, reviews, and all the other functions demanded by her 
position. In 1847 she went to Naples for her health, and 
the emperor accompanied her. It is said that he would suf. 
fer no one but himself to carry her from her carriage to her 
apartment. 

From 1844, when the emperor visited England, to 1854, 
when another war broke out between himself and Turkey, 
the chief events in Russia that concerned Europe were the 
extinguishment in 1846 of the last remnant:of Polish inde- 
pendence, and the assistance afforded to Austria by the 
Emperor Nicholas in her struggle with Kossuth and Hun- 


I02 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


gary. In 1848 the Hungarians almost believed themselves 
successful when the Emperor Nicholas, still carrying out the 
precepts of Peter the Great, marched an army of more than 
100,000 men through Moldavia into the eastern provinces 
of Hungary. Then Gorgey, who had been appointed 
military dictator in 189, despaired. With divided coun- 
cils, with divided aims, with divided generals, — nay, even 
with a divided population, — for the Slavs in the depen- 
dencies of Hungary were in revolt, — it seemed hopeless to 
fight the forces of two emperors. Nothing could exceed 
the sufferings of the rural population of Hungary when the 
Slav inhabitants of its frontier provinces felt themselves 
strengthened and encouraged by the presence of the Rus- 
sians ; nevertheless, so far as the conduct of the regular 
forces was concerned, that of the Russians was far less cruel 
than the behavior of the generals and soldiers of the army 
of Austria. 

Gorgey, believing that further resistance would only pro- 
long the sufferings of his country, surrendered his army at 
Villagos to the Russians, his officers breaking their swords, 
and his troopers shooting their horses after hugging and 
kissing them. General Paskievitch, who commanded the 
Russian troops, made in return promises of amnesty in 
the name of the Austrian government, which were never 
fulfilled. 

Thus we approach the days of the Crimean War, which 
broke up the general peace of Europe, which had lasted 
thirty years. 


CHAPTER WV. 
THE CRIMEAN WAR. 


VERY war that affects Turkey seems like an annex to 

the Crusades. Three quarters of a century ago it was 

the fashion to talk much of the folly and the superstition of 

the Crusades. Apart from their religious aspect we have 

learned to see how great were the advantages to civilization 

and learning in western Europe promoted by those wars, 

and most sincerely to regret that no subsequent crusade 

followed up the work begun by Godfrey de Bouillon and 
his successful crusaders. 

It was the dream of Columbus to devote all the wealth 
he might acquire in the new world to a crusade that should 
complete the work begun four centuries before his day, 
and which four hundred years after is still incomplete.1. The 
Crusades have left us in the nineteenth century an unsolved 
problem, — the Eastern Question. Not but what the Turks 
are a fine people, but, as we say of weeds, they are flowers 
in the wrong place ; though the effete or savage Christian 
nations likely to succeed them are far from being their 
superiors either in morality, honor, or trust in a Divine 
Providence. 

As we have seen, Russia, ever since the Turks estab- 
lished themselves in Constantinople has aimed to be con- 
sidered the patron and protector of Greek Christians. For 


1 In 1606 the baptism of Louis XIII. at Fontainebleau was accom- 
panied by strange portents in the sky, interpreted by the astrologers 
to mean that Louis would receive the crown of Germany, reconquer 
Europe from the Turks, and overthrow the Ottoman Empire. See 
Edinburgh Review, June, 1893. 


104. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


four hundred years every Russian has been born to the 
hope that he may one day follow the footsteps of a con- 
quering czar through a certain gate into Constantinople, — 
a gate through which ancient prophecy has said that the 
Russians shall pass in triumph to re-establish Christian 
worship in the Cathedral of St. Sophia. It has been 
walled up by one of the sultans in consequence of this 
prophecy, and remains walled up to the present day. 

But although the Russian emperor claims to be the polit- 
ical protector of Greek Christians, Greek Christians out of 
Russia are by no means willing to accept him as their eccle- 
siastical head. Politically, however, there have been times 
when they were not unwilling to welcome him as their pro- 
tector against the Turks, leaving the religious differences 
between patriarch and autocrat in abeyance. 

The sultan of Turkey in 1851 was Abdul Medjid, son of 
Sultan Mahmoud, the destroyer of the Janissaries. He had 
succeeded his father in 1841, when the Eastern Question, 
complicated by the affairs of Egypt, was threatening a war in 
Europe, —a war which was only averted by the pacific 
policy of Louis Philippe and by Lord Palmerston’s skilful 
diplomacy. 

We can sincerely sympathize with the feeling that makes 
the Holy Places dear to all Christians, — those “ places where 
Christ’s holy feet have trod ;”’ that Jerusalem which in a 
certain sense is “the joy of the whole earth” now, and 
will, we humbly believe, be more so hereafter. 

The holy shrines are two, — the Church of the Nativity 
in Bethlehem, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at 
Jerusalem. ‘To these shrines yearly come hosts of Greek, 
Latin, and Armenian pilgrims, and at the holy season of 
Easter such quarrels and disputes for precedence went on 
among the pilgrims (each church claiming especial privi- 
leges in connection with the holy sites) that often Turkish 
soldiers had to interfere ; and once there was a disgraceful 
massacre, the pilgrims fighting each other until the pave- 
ments of the church ran blood. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. IO5 


In 1851 Louis Napoleon (then prince-president) made 
an effort to have the privileges of the Latins, that is, the 
Roman Catholics, enlarged. This stirred the Greek Chris- 
tians into fury. It was they who had had the ascendency 
at the holy shrines since 1740. They at once appealed to 
their great champion the czar of Russia. The French 
ambassador at Constantinople in 1851 was the Marquis de 
la Vallette, a man of charming manners and of great 
benignity, who had for his wife a very beautiful American 
lady, —a perfect woman of the world, in the higher sense 
of that much desecrated expression. But nothing in the 
career of M. de la Vallette would have led any one to sup- 
pose that his principles of religion or morality were higher 
than those of Prince Louis Napoleon. One can_ hardly 
imagine that either of them had one particle of religious 
sentiment connected with the dispute about the Holy 
Places. The great question was whether Latin monks 
should keep the key of the great door of the chapel in the 
grotto at Bethlehem, and whether in the chapel above 
ground they might hang a silver star with the arms of 
France emblazoned on it. The Greek Christians were 
willing that the Latins should have a key to the side door, 
but not to the principal entrance. Such was the puerile 
dispute that led to war and sorrow and suffering; and its 
consequences are with us to this day. ‘The quarrel waxed 
so hot after the czar was brought into it that a Russian 
army was held in readiness to enter what were shen called 
the Danubian Provinces. 

The dissensions of the monks about their keys was an 
entering-wedge by which the czar hoped to carry out the 
intentions ascribed to Peter the Great, and to obtain the 
object of desire to every Russian, namely, controlling influ- 
ence at Constantinople, if not its complete possession. 

Russia without Constantinople has no practicable outlet 
to the high seas. A fleet sent down the Baltic is liable to 
be frozen in in winter, or attacked while passing through 
the Sound, Cattegat, or Skager Rack. A fleet launched at 


106 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Archangel in the White Sea could sail only in summer, and 
only in summer return home. It is no wonder then that 
every Russian covets Constantinople. When Alexander I. 
lost the opportunity of acquiring it by helping the revolu- 
tionary Greeks, he said, and truly: “I am the only man in 
Russia who would not risk anything on earth to obtain 
possession of Constantinople.” 

The state of mind of the Czar Nicholas between 1840 
and the breaking out of the Crimean War is thus described 
by Mr. Kinglake: ‘“ He was always eager to come forward 
as an ardent and even ferocious defender of the Greek 
Christians in Turkey, but he dreaded interfering with Turkey 
when the opportunity was offered him, unless he could get 
the alliance of England.” He had sometimes a curious 
and undiplomatic frankness in dealing with trained diploma- 
tists. One night, January 9, 1853 (nine years after his visit 
to Windsor Castle) when Sir Hamilton Seymour, the Eng- 
lish ambassador, was at a party in the palace of the Grand 
Duchess Helena, the emperor came up to him and began 
talking about the close amity that should exist between 
England and Russia, adding: “If we are agreed I am 
without anxiety as to the West of Europe, but as to Turkey 
that country is in a critical state, and may give us a good 
deal of trouble.’’? The emperor then shook hands with Sir 
Hamilton, and believed that he had closed the conversation ; 
but Sir Hamilton, with his hand still in the emperor’s grasp, 
said: ‘Sire, with your gracious permission, I am about to 
take a liberty. Would your Majesty add a few words which 
might calm the anxiety in England regarding your Majesty’s 
intentions with respect to Turkey?”’ After a moment’s 
hesitation, the emperor added: ‘“ The affairs of Turkey are 
in a very disorganized condition. The country itself seems 
to be falling to pieces. ‘The fall will be a great misfortune, 
and it iS very important that England and Russia should 
come to a perfectly good understanding on these affairs, and 
that neither should take any decisive step unless the other 
is apprised.’’ Then he went on: “Stay! We have on our 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 107 


hands a sick man, — a very sick man. It will be, I tell you 
frankly, a great misfortune if one of these days he should 
slip away from us; especially before all necessary arrange- 
ments have been made. But, however, this is not the time 
to speak to you upon this matter.” 

A few days later the czar sent for Sir Hamilton, and 
set before him in more detail his views of the Eastern 
(Question. 

He protested that he desired no more territory than his 
empire possessed. ‘The time had gone by, he said, when 
Russia had anything to fear from Turkey ; “ but there are,” 
he continued, ‘in that country several millions of Christians, 
whose interests I am called upon to watch over, while the 
right of doing so is secured to me by treaty. I may truly 
say I make a moderate and sparing use of my right, and I 
will freely confess it is one that is attended with obligations 
occasionally very inconvenient, but I cannot recede from 
the discharge of a very distinct duty. Our religion, as 
established in this country, came to us from the East, and 
there are feelings as well as obligations which must not be 
lost sight of. Now Turkey, in the condition I have described, 
has by degrees fallen into such a state of decrepitude that, 
as I told you the other night, eager as we all are for the 
existence of the man (and I am as desirous as you can be 
for the continuance of his life, I beg you to believe), he 
may suddenly die upon our hands. We cannot resuscitate 
what is dead; if the Turkish Empire falls it will rise no 
more. I put it to you, then, whether it is not better to be 
prepared for such a contingency, rather than to incur the 
chaos, confusion, and uncertainty of a European war?” 

The plan the czar proposed was that neither he nor 
England should take Constantinople; that Servia and 
Bulgaria should become autonomous States, under the pro- 
tection of Russia, and that England should have Egypt and 
Candia. 

Russia is always well pleased to have weak States on her 
frontier. She waits until they get into disputes with one 


108 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


another, then she settles their disputes, taking for her pay a 
portion of their territory. She does this again and again 
until the remnant left appears hardly worth saving, and then 
she absorbs the whole. 

The English government declined the bargain, and the 
matter remained secret for rather more than a year. ‘The 
czar had opened the subject to Prince Metternich before 
his conversation with Sir Hamilton, and the old Austrian 
diplomatist, not wishing to discuss the subject, looked full 
at him, saying: “The sick mane Are your Majesty’s 
remarks addressed to his doctor, or his heir?” 

Meantime the little body of Christians who live in the 
Black Mountains (Montenegro) and have never been sub- 
dued by the Turks were attacked by a Turkish army under 
the celebrated Hungarian renegade, Omar Pasha. The 
Emperor Nicholas was anxious to intervene on behalf of the 
brave and primitive Montenegrins, but Austria forestalled 
him by representing to the Porte very peremptorily that she 
would not calmly see the independence of the Montenegrins 
imperilled. 

The sultan greatly surprised both the czar and the 
emperor of Austria by at once withdrawing Omar Pasha 
and his army from besieging the mountain stronghold of 
the Montenegrins, and this prompt submission to the repre- 
sentations of Austria deprived the czar of that pretext for 
a war with Turkey. 

But the Russian army lay all ready on the Turkish 
frontier, and Nicholas was sincerely desirous of hostilities. 
He despatched Prince Mentzikoff as his ambassador to 
Constantinople, a man more celebrated for his witty sayings 
than for his talent for diplomacy. He was to settle the 
question of the Holy Places, and to force the sultan into 
making a secret treaty with Russia, by which Russia should 
be given legal power over the Greek patriarch at Constanti- 
nople and be confirmed as the protector of Greek Christians 
throughout the sultan’s dominions. } 

The English ambassador at Constantinople had long been 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. IOg 


Sir Stratford Canning (nephew of the great George Can- 
ning, minister for Foreign Affairs in England in 1822); the 
Turks used to call him the English sultan, so great was his 
influence at the Porte. Part — indeed the chief part — of 
Prince Mentzikoff’s mission was to put Sir Stratford Can- 
ning aside, and to acquire the same influence for Russia with 
the Porte that Sir Stratford had exercised for so many years. 

Sir Stratford was away from his post at that time on a 
visit to England. The English government made him Lord 
Stratford de Redclyffe and at once sent him back, to check- 
mate, if possible, the Russian diplomatist. His first step 
was to conciliate the French ambassador, and to get him 
to join in making concessions about the quarrel concerning 
the Holy Places, which would take that grievance out of 
Prince Mentzikoff’s hands. Accordingly, it was gravely 
and formally agreed that the key of the church at Beth- 
lehem, and the silver star, should remain where they were, 
but should confer no new rights upon the Latins, or Roman 
Catholics. The door-keeper was to be a Greek monk, as 
before, but without power to exclude from the Holy Place 
any Roman Catholic worshipper. The Greeks and the 
Armenians might say their prayers at an earlier hour than 
the Latins in the Chapel of the Virgin, — the Greeks first, 
the Armenians after them, then the Latins, each having an 
hour for their service; and the roof of the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre was to be repaired at the cost of the sultan, 
who was to listen to the remonstrances of the Greek patri- 
arch if he made any mistakes. 

Thus the controversy of the Holy Places was settled, but 
there remained the question of the secret treaty. On this 
point Lord Stratford de Redclyffe triumphantly defeated his 
Russian rival, and Prince Mentzikoff quitted the field in a 
state of great exasperation. By this time England and 
France had drawn closely together in alliance, — Napoleon 
III. seizing this opportunity to show how sincere he was in 
departing from the policy of his uncle, and in being friends 
with England. 


T10 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Many amusing stories are told about Lord Stratford de 
Redclyffe, — “the great Elchi,”’ as he was called familiarly. 
He was a man of very great talent, with a brain, as some 
one said, “like an elephant’s trunk, equally capable of 
taking up the largest or the smallest things.” The way in 
which he managed the Turks was amusing enough. He 
stood their friend in everything, and with a bitter hatred 
he hated the emperor of Russia, but he was not going to 
overlook any of the short-comings of his Turkish friends. 
Here is an instance ; one of his @/tacheés tells the story : 


“IT was with him one day in his ten-oared caique upon the 
Bosphorus when we passed a large garden in which preparations 
were being made for building. Lord Stratford told me to 
land and inquire whose it was. On being told that the sultan 
was about building a new summer palace, he ordered the boat- 
men to row straight to where the sultan was living. He was 
announced as desiring an immediate audience. It was just at 
the opening of the Crimean War, and Abdul Medjid received 
him with smiles, thinking he had come to bring important news 
from the Danubian Provinces. But the great Elchi, who had a 
quick temper, burst out with, ‘ His Majesty has eight palaces 
already, Ask him would he spend his money, scarcely sufficient 
as it is to buy bread for his troops in the field, in building a 
ninth palace for the emperor of Russia to occupy ? — for no 
assistance can be expected from the allies of Turkey if they see 
such reckless extravagance going on!’” 


Prince Mentzikoff’s departure from Constantinople, after 
having taken down the imperial arms over the Russian 
embassy, was equivalent to a declaration of war between 
Turkey and Russia. England and France were united, 
whether for war or diplomacy. The next move had to 
come from the czar. His chief minister at that period was 
Count Nesselrode, a man of calm good sense, who had 
grown gray in diplomacy; but he was not able to appease 
his master when he learned that the English and French 
fleets had united, and together had approached the Dar- 
danelles, casting anchor in Besika Bay, which was as near 
to Constantinople as diplomacy permitted. The czar threat- 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. III 


ened to retaliate by letting his army cross the Pruth into 
the Turkish dependency of Moldavia. 

As has been said, the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi prohibited 
any vessel of war of any foreign power from entering the 
Sea of Marmora, either by the Bosphorus, on which Con- 
stantinople is situated, or by the Dardanelles, which connects 
the Sea of Marmora with the Atgean. The Bosphorus is 
seventeen miles long and in some places not wider than a 
second-class American river. Russia had built the mighty 
fortress and naval station of Sebastopol on the extreme 
southern point of the Crimea, a territory she had wrenched 
from Turkey about seventy-five years before. But her great 
ships lay inactive in the harbor of Sebastopol. They had 
no exit from the Black Sea. So long as the sultan was at 
peace no ship of war could pass Constantinople. If Russia 
invaded Moldavia Turkey would no longer be at peace, and 
the English and French fleets might pass the Dardanelles 
and Bosphorus and enter the Black Sea. 

Meantime plenipotentiaries of the Austrian, Prussian, 
English, and French governments were trying to patch up a 
peace between Turkey and the angry emperor of Russia: 
but Nicholas, inflamed by religious zeal, was almost beside 
himself. 

The “note” prepared as a basis of reconciliation was 
acceptable to neither party, and moreover a strong Moham- 
medan feeling was roused in Constantinople against the 
Infidel. Placards, urging the sultan to declare war against 
Russia, were posted in the mosques, and the condition of 
things was so stormy that fears were entertained for the 
safety of the Christian population. Under these circum- 
stances, after much hesitation, the English and French 
ambassadors ordered their respective fleets up to Constanti- 
nople. The czar at once retaliated. His fleet sailed out 
of Sebastopol, and stood over to Sinope, a town upon the 
Turkish coast of the Black Sea, where a small Turkish fleet 
was lying. The Russian admiral had six line-of-battle ships, 
- the Turkish admiral had no three-deckers. He had, how- 


II12 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT# CENTURY. 


ever, seven frigates, a sloop, and a steamer, and was the 
first to begin the engagement. Every one of the Turkish 
ships was destroyed (except the steamer), with nearly all 
the men on board of them. Only four hundred Turks sur- 
vived, and those were wounded. ‘This was the opening of 
the Crimean War, —a war apparently without any heart- 
stirring object; a war that might have been averted by 
diplomacy. But a desire for war seems to have possessed 
that generation. Mr. Kinglake, whose animosity to the 
emperor of the French is conspicuous throughout his able 
and interesting volumes, seems to think that the desire of 
Napoleon III. for the English alliance egged on the war. 
He says of it: — 


“This war was deadly. It brought, so to say, to the grave 
full a million of workmen and soldiers. It consumed a pitiless 
share of wealth. It shattered the framework of the European 
system, and made it hard for any nation henceforth to be safe 
except by its sheer strength.” 


At this crisis a deputation of English Quakers waited on 
the ezar at “st. Petersburg; to = urges upon = imaepeaees 
Nicholas received them in a manner which they felt to be 
most flattering, and which made them hope that they were 
the world’s peace-makers; but the moment they departed 
he turned all his attention to war, while in England nothing 
could exceed the warlike enthusiasm. As the queen wrote 
to her uncle, King Leopold, ‘‘ The war is widely popular.”’ 

Twelve thousand men were at once sent to Malta, and 
Lord Raglan (Lord Fitzroy Somerset, a Waterloo hero) was 
placed in command. Lord Raglan had been second at the 
War Office while the Duke of Wellington was commander- 
in-chief, and was much disappointed when Lord Hardinge, 
instead of himself, had been appointed the Duke’s succes- 
sor. Fifteen thousand men were to follow the first twelve 
thousand, and France was to send forty-five thousand. 
Besides these a splendid fleet was fitted out to carry the 
war into the Baltic, and placed under the command of the 
dashing but eccentric Admiral Sir Charles Napier. 


LORD RAGLAN 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URSANA 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. Il3 


The Russian ambassador left London on Feb. 7, 1854 ; 
on the same day the English ambassador was recalled from 
St. Petersburg; and on Feb. 21 England put forth her 
declaration of war. 

Meantime the English troops were beginning to embark 
at Portsmouth, and along the southern coast of England. 
They were in a state of wild enthusiasm. There had been 
no war with any civilized nation for a generation. In the last 
great war they had conquered the French, who had con- 
quered the world; now English and French were to fight 
side by side, and emulate each other. 

The queen, writing to her uncle Leopold, said : — 


“ The last battalion of the Guards (Scots Fusiliers) embarked 
to-day. They passed through the courtyard here at 7 A.M. 
We were on the balcony to see them pass. The morning was 
fine, the sun shining over the towers of Westminster Abbey, 
and an immense crowd collected to see the fine men, and cheer- 
ing them immensely as with difficulty they marched along. 
They formed in line, presented arms, and then cheered us very 
heartily, and went off cheering. It was a touching and beauti- 
ful sight. Many sorrowing friends were there, and one saw the 
shake of many a hand. My best wishes and prayers will be 
with them all.” 


Again, on March 15, 1854, when going down to Spithead 
to see the fleet that was assembled there to sail for the 
Baltic, the queen writes in anticipation of the review: “ It 
will be a solemn moment! Many a heart will be very 
heavy, and many a prayer, including our own, will be offered 
for their safety and glory.” 

So commenced the Crimean War. It lasted a year and 
a half. For twelve months,” says Kinglake, “it raged. 
It so tried the strength, so measured the enduring power of 
the nations engaged in it, that, when the conflict was over 
their relative stations in Europe were changed, and they 
had to be classed afresh.” 

The war was undertaken to enforce, as it were, the police 
regulations of Europe. ‘The idea on which these police 

8 


II4. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


regulations are founded is that there are five Great Powers, 
England, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia (now Ger- 
many). If any of these Great Powers should wrong a 
lesser State, and that wrong also tends to the injury of any 
one of the other four Great Powers, the injured Great 
Power is expected to take up the cause of the little power, 
and to fight the big one if necessary. 

This was the theory on which the Crimean War took 
place. Russia was oppressing Turkey by threatening her 
with war unless she put the protectorate over twelve millions 
of Greek Christians in her dominions in Europe into the 
czar’s hands. England and France argued that this would 
so weaken Turkey (already considered by Russia “a very 
sick man’’) that before long Russia would get possession 
of Constantinople, and become very formidable to the other 
four Great Powers; therefore it would be best to cripple 
her before she attained additional strength. 

The fleet that the queen and the prince consort went 
down to review at Spithead set sail under the command, 
as has been said, of Admiral Sir Charles Napier. He 
was cousin to General Sir Charles Napier, the hero of 
Indian warfare; also cousin to Sir William Napier, the 
historian of the campaigns in the Peninsula, and second 
cousin to Lord Napier of Magdala. He had all the dash, 
bravery, and natural ability of these distinguished members 
of his family ; but he had been at sea all his life, had had 
no education from books, was uncouth in his appearance, 
slightly lame from a wound received early in life, and was 
noted among his brother officers for being a sloven. His 
opinions in politics were those of an advanced reformer, 
and his animadversions were dreaded by every ministry as 
soon as he obtained a seat in Parliament. His professional 


1 When Sir Charles was elected Member of Parliament for Mary- 
lebone, he applied to my father for one of my school histories of : 
England ; saying he had never read an English history, and thought 
he ought to know something on the subject as he was called to be a 
legislator. — E. W. L. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. IIl5 


reputation rested largely on the magnificent services he had 
rendered to Maria da Gloria, the Queen of Portugal, in 
1828. For offering his sword to a foreign power without 
permission from his government he was dropped from the 
English navy list, but was afterwards restored to the navy. 
In 1840 he distinguished himself in the Levant, where he 
took St. Jean d’Acre from the Egyptians under Ibrahim 
Pasha. 

The French fleet that was to have supported that of 
England in the expedition to the Baltic. was not ready ; 
indeed it did not get ready till hostilities were nearly over ; 
and the naval part of the war against Russia was a failure, 
to the deep disappointment of England, and the mortifica- 
tion of Sir Charles Napier. ‘The fleet under his orders was 
a magnificent one, consisting almost entirely of screw-ships, 
carrying two thousand guns, and fourteen thousand men. 
With this armament he sailed for the Baltic, carrying with 
him the hopes and confidence of the English people. The 
queen and prince, in the little yacht ‘ Fairy,” went in and 
out among his monster ships at Spithead, and, after the 
whole fleet had sailed past, the queen stood waving her 
handkerchief, the “ Fairy” remaining motionless as if those 
on board of her wished to linger over the scene.} 

This splendid fleet entered the Baltic, and there did 
absolutely nothing. It tried to take Cronstadt, which was 
too well defended. It sustained few losses, it suffered no 
defeat ; it was simply a naval illustration of the old saying, 

“The King of France with twenty thousand men 
Marched up the hill, and then — marched down again.” 
We need speak of it no more. 

To tell the history of the Danubian Provinces in this 
place would interrupt our story. It is enough to say that 
Moldavia and Wallachia, lying north of the Danube, had 
long been ruled by the Turks when by the Treaty of 
Adrianople in 1829 they were put partly under Russian 


1 Life of the Prince Consort. 


116. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


protection, and were governed by their own princes, called 
‘““waiwodes,” who paid tribute and owed fealty to the sultan 
their suzerain. ‘The high-road from Russia into Turkey 
proper lies through these provinces. 

Some months before the declaration of war between 
Russia, England, and Turkey, the Emperor Nicholas had 
assembled a large army on the banks of the Pruth. He 
did this on learning that the Turkish government, by ad- 
vice of Lord Stratford de Redclyffe, had refused to sign the 
agreement which had been almost concluded, by which 
the sultan was to confirm the protectorate claimed by 
Russia over the Greek Christians in his dominions. At 
once the army on the Pruth was marched into Wallachia. 

It seems desirable to have a clear idea of the provinces 
of Turkey at that period. North of the Danube lay 
Wallachia. South of the Danube lay Bulgaria and Servia. 
Running through Bulgaria were the Balkan Mountains 
(Mount Hzemus in the days of the old Greeks) which 
separated Bulgaria proper from Southern Bulgaria (other- 
wise called Eastern Roumelia) ; and Roumelia was the very 
heart and body of European Turkey. In Northern Bul- 
garia were the great fortress of Silistria, the fortified city of 
Plevna, the entrenched camp of Shumla, and the port of 
Varna. Russia cannot approach Constantinople by land 
without crossing Bulgaria and taking one or more of these 
places. This is why the Russian government at the present 
day is anxious that Bulgaria shall have no prince who is 
not devoted to Russian interests and subservient to the will 
Of thegezar: 

The Turkish general-in-chief in 1853 was Omar Pasha, 
a Hungarian renegade. He had committed some small 
fault during his early youth, and had fled from home to 
escape punishment. He had crossed the Danube and 
made himself a Turk. He was acold, stern man, but a 
great general. The sub-officers in the Turkish army are 
in general cowardly, trifling, and corrupt, but the common 
soldiers are brave and self-devoted,— admirable material 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. hi7 


for an army if only their officers could be made trust- 
worthy. 

In the month of March 1854, Lord Raglan was chosen 
to command the English forces, and Marshal de Saint-Arnaud 
to command those of the French. Saint-Arnaud had been 
the man who so skilfully and successfully conducted the 
prince-president’s coup @’état of December 1, 1851, — 
about two years and a half before the breaking out of the 
Crimean War. He had in consequence been raised to the 
dignity of a marshal of France, and was intrusted, though 
the youngest marshal in the French service, with the com- 
mand of his imperial master’s army in this war. 

Mr. Kinglake, in his history of the struggle in the Crimea, 
says of him: — 


“ He impersonated with singular exactness the idea which 
our forefathers had in their minds when they spoke of what 
they called ‘a Frenchman.’ He was bold, gay, restless, and 
vain; but beneath the mere glitter of the surface there was a 
great capacity for administrative business, and a more than 
common readiness to take away human life.” 


He began his career as Jacques Leroy. He ended it as 
the Marshal Achille de Saint-Arnaud, having had divers aliases 
during the interval. In 1816 he entered the French army 
as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Guard, but his course of 
life was so dissolute and so disreputable that he was soon 
dismissed, and was obliged to keep out of France for sev- 
eral years. Part of this time he. spent in England, and 
learned to speak English fluently, as well as several other 
languages. He lived apparently by all kinds of shifts, and 
his course of life was not improved. At one time, under 
the name of Florival, he was an actor in one of the second- 
rate theatres in the suburbs of Paris. When the Revolu- 
tion of 1830 broke out he was thirty-three. He changed 
his name, again entered the army as a sub-lieutenant, and 
gained favor with his superiors, ingratiating himself in 
their regard by various little services. General Bugeaud 


118 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


made him his aide-de-camp,’ and it is to Saint-Arnaud’s 
credit that when arranging the details of the coup d’ésat 
with Prince Louis Napoleon, he took care to have Marshal 
Bugeaud sent from Paris to Lyons, so that he escaped 
the imprisonment and the indignities heaped on the other 
“ African generals.’’ But while aide-de-camp to Bugeaud 
and a personal favorite with that general, ‘“again,’”’ says 
Kinglake, “the cloud passed over him.’ ‘That is, he was 
again dropped from the service “for conduct unbecoming 
an officer and a gentleman.” 

No longer eligible to re-enter the regular army, he got a 
sub-lieutenant’s commission in what was called “the For- 
eign Legion,” and went with it to Algeria. ‘ Every man,” 
he says, “in that corps boasted of his we orageuse ;”’ that 
is, Saint-Arnaud found them all scamps and dare-devils like 
himself. He had however re-entered military life with a 
determination to die or to be something remarkable. At 
the memorable siege of Constantine in 1837 the fortunes 
of the day were mainly due to his rash courage. When all 
seemed lost after a great explosion, which blew hundreds 
of Frenchmen into the air, Saint-Arnaud rallied the foreign 
devils of his corps— many of them English, Irish, Ger- 
mans, and Scandinavians — by an English hurrah. The men 
caught up the shout, and, cheering, followed their leader. 

His health was wretched. Half the time he suffered 
bodily agony, but nothing quenched his spirit. If there 
was a deed of daring to be done, in or out of his profes- 
sion, he was the man to do it, and it was.often accom- 
panied by acrobatic feats which he must have learned when 
Signor Florival. 

In 1845 he perpetrated a horrible massacre of five hun- 
dred Arabs in a cave. I do not mean that massacre which 
made General Pélissier world-famous, — when he smoth- 
ered a crowd of Arabs, men, women, and children, at Dahra ; 


1 Saint-Arnaud was with him at Blaye, and was one of the wit- 
nesses to the declaration of the Duchesse de Berry concerning her 
second marriage. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. I1I9Q 


but this other massacre Saint-Arnaud for a long time 
kept secret. He so contrived it that the very soldiers who 
walled up the openings to the cave did not know that there 
were five hundred living wretches inside it. Saint-Arnaud 
could himself take the whole credit of the deed, saying with 
Coriolanus, “Alone I did it—I!” 

After Louis Napoleon became president, he at once 
meditated how he should make himself emperor, and Fleury, 
his personal friend (the only one of the inner circle that 
surrounded him who was really true to him), was sent into 
Algeria to select a military man fit to conduct the plan of a 
coup d'état. We found Saint-Arnaud, then a colonel and 
brevet-general. He was secret, daring, reckless, able in 
administration, unscrupulous, untroubled by political prin- 
ciples, agreeable and intelligent as a companion, and with 
no character to compromise. Fleury brought him home, 
and presented him to the prince-president, who as a first 
step in the accomplishment of his purpose made him minis- 
ter of war. 

We know the result. And this was the man who was to 
be associated with Lord Raglan as his colleague, and 
intrusted with the most splendid command conferred upon 
any French general since the great wars of Napoleon. 

Lord Raglan was third son of the Duke of Beaufort, a 
line of dukes legitimately descended from a morganatic 
marriage made by a son of Edward III. He was already 
known in history as Lord Fitzroy Somerset, aide-de-camp, 
secretary, and nephew by marriage to the Duke of Welling- 
ton. He was for forty years so attached to the duke’s per- 
son that he seemed like the very shadow of that great man. 
He had lost an arm at Waterloo while carrying orders for 
Wellington past La Haye Sainte. His name and his honor 
were unsullied. His life had been woven like a thread into 
his country’s history. Wellington had been probably more 
closely intimate with him than with any other man living. 
He was a man of simple habits, hating show, fuss, or parade. 
Indeed he did not like public demonstrations of enthusiasm 


I20 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


even for his soldiers. He would have wished to start off 
with them to the East, and there serve his queen and do 
his duty. He was sixty-six years old, but fresh, active, and 
upright, — a strange contrast in all things to the inexpe- 
rienced French commander-in-chief with whom he was 
linked, and whom it was his almost painful endeavor to 
treat on all occasions with distinguished consideration. 

On April 11, 1854, Lord Raglan and the queen’s cousin, 
the Duke of Cambridge, commander of a division of the 
English army, attended a review of thirty thousand French 
troops in the Champ de Mars, where, almost for the first 
time in the history of France, French troops cheered for 
England. The emperor had known Lord Fitzroy Somerset 
in London. Indeed it was Lord Fitzroy who had intro- 
duced him to the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House 
during his exile. 

On April 13 Lord Raglan had a long and confidential 
private interview with the emperor, and then was taken 
into an outer room where he found King Jerome, the Duke 
of Cambridge, Marshal Vaillant (then minister of war), 
Lord de Ros, and Marshal de Saint-Arnaud. 

What a strange conjunction !—the brother of the great 
Napoleon, his nephew and successor, the grandson of 
George III., the nephew and disciple of Wellington, Lord 
de Ros, bearer of the oldest title in England, Vaillant 
the oldest marshal in France, and — Marshal de Saint- 
Arnaud, a man twice dismissed from the French service, 
and who had not even a legal right to his name. 

After this interview Lord Raglan and the Duke of Cam- 
bridge hurried forward to join their troops, who were 
encamped at Gallipoli upon the shore of the Dardanelles, 
opposite the old camping-ground of the Greeks during the 
siege of ‘Troy. 

Gallipoli was a dull, sad little town; decay and dirt 
were everywhere, but the place changed suddenly as soon 
as the fleet of transports arrived. ‘‘Trumpet-calls, shout- 
ing, and bustle succeeded the death-like repose of the 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. I21I 


broken-down little city. A camp was soon pitched. Things 
shook into their places,’ says an eye-witness. “ Drill 
began, and marching out,” to bring the soldiers into a proper 
state of training. ‘The march past on parade was soon as 
good as at Aldershot. Had Nicholas been there he might 
have said, as his son did afterward to the German crown 
prince, while witnessing a review at Windsor: ‘ They are 
the finest soldiers in the world. You and I may thank our 
stars there are so few of them.” 

While the armies lay at Gallipoli waiting the arrival 
of military stores, especially the means of land trans- 
portation, which would enable them to push forward, 
Lord Raglan’s patience and courtesy were not a little tried 
by Marshal de Saint-Arnaud’s changes of mind. ‘In the 
dead of night or in the early dawn he would send word 
to his colleague that he proposed to make changes that 
would affect the whole plan of campaign, or alter the whole 
structure of the armies. With bland politeness Lord Raglan 
would convince him, or checkmate him, when Saint- Arnaud, 
with irrepressible buoyancy and good-humor, would submit, 
and all would be smooth again.”’ 

When the army of the czar had posted itself in Wal- 
lachia, on the northern or left bank of the Danube, Omar 
Pasha had massed his troops in Bulgaria on the opposite 
bank. The czar was not willing that his Russians should 
cross into Turkey Proper while negotiations were pending, 
and Wallachia was (at least nominally) Russian ground ; but 
inasmuch as it still owed to the sultan tribute and alle- 
giance, Omar was continually sending troops across the 
Danube and harassing the enemy by small surprises. At 
last the Russian army crossed the river and laid siege to 
the great fortress of Silistria. This was precisely what 
Omar Pasha wanted. He desired they should waste their 
time and strength upon stone walls which he knew would 
hold out against them. 

The siege of Silistria was going on under the old Russian 
general Paskievitch, so successful in Persia, in Poland, and 


I22 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


in the Caucasus nearly thirty years before ; but Omar Pasha 
did not make any energetic attempt to relieve the garrison, 
feeling assured that when protected by fortifications Turkish 
troops were well-nigh invincible. The allied generals, how- 
ever, had misgivings on the subject. Lord Raglan had no 
great faith in Turks, and if the Danubian fortress were to 
fall while the French and English armies lingered at Galli- 
poli, he felt that they and their commanders would be 
disgraced. ‘They could not go anywhere by land for want 
of the means of transportation, but there was an English 
fleet and a French ‘fleet ‘at -hand,; and in’ these they 
embarked, sailed through the Bosphorus, passed Constan- 
tinople, entered the Black Sea, and landed at Varna, on 
the shores of Bulgaria. There they were near enough to 
Silistria to hear the roar of the great guns at night with the 
ear to the ground, and near enough to Omar Pasha’s head- 
quarters to reach them in a long day’s ride. 

Silistria was immensely strong as a fortress, but it had a 
very small garrison for so large a place. It had also an 
indifferent Turkish commander; but two young English 
officers from India, named Nasmyth and Butler; had 
thrown themselves into the place, animated the Turks, who 
soon adored them, bullied the Turkish commander into 
something like courage, and successfully resisted every 
effort of Paskievitch and his large army to take the town. 
Poor Butler was mortally wounded during the siege. He 
and Nasmyth were joined in the course of it by five other 
English officers. One night at Varna the usual cannonade 
from Silistria was listened for by the French and English 
troops recently landed. It was very heavy. The next night 
the allies heard none. Had the place then fallen? On 
the contrary the siege was raised, and Paskievitch had 
retreated across the Danube. ‘Thither a party of Turkish 
troops, led by Englishmen, followed him, and obtained 
signal advantages at a post on the Danube called Giurgievo. 

This roused the czar to fury. ‘I can understand Ole- 
nitza,” he cried (Olenitza was a battle won by Omar Pasha) ; 


THE CRIMEAN’ WAR. 123 


“T can even understand that Omar should have been able 
to hold out against me on the lines of Kalafat; I can 
understand Silistria, — the strongest may fail in a siege, and 
Paskievitch and his second in command were both 
wounded ; but — but — but — that Turks, led on by a 
general of Sepoys and six or seven English boys, — that 
they should dare to cross the Danube in the face of my 
troops, that, daring to attempt it, they should do it, and 
hold fast their ground, that my troops should give way 
before them, and that this, this should be the last act of 
a campaign which is ending with the abandonment of the 
principalities and the retreat of my whole army ! — Heaven 
lays upon me more than I can bear!” 

The Russian army having retreated, the English, French, 
and Turkish allied armies found no enemy in their front, and 
had to determine on a new point of attack in southern 
Russia. 

Meanwhile the allied generals, Lord Raglan and Marshal 
Saint-Arnaud with their staffs, started out one hot summer 
morning to ride over to the Turkish camp at Shumla, and 
consult with Omar Pasha. 

“ Lord Raglan,” says a civilian who was with the army at 
this stage of the war, ! “‘ having served on the Duke of Wel- 
lington’s staff in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, when 
feelings were rife in the British army not over conducive to 
harmony with the French, thought he could not do too 
much to show that no such antipathies prevailed now. 
Marshal Saint-Arnaud, whatever other merits he may have 
possessed, was certainly rather wanting in the chivalrous 
feeling which ought to have prevented his taking an unfair 
advantage of his colleague’s cordial courtesy. Later on 
this peculiar feature of their intercourse was of serious 
importance, as it could not fail to affect their joint opera- 
tions, to the prejudice of the British army, but in this 
instance no great harm was done by it, and a little amuse- 
ment at the good and gallant Lord Raglan’s expense for 


1 Laurence Oliphant, in Blackwood’s Magazine. 


124 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


letting himself be jockeyed, was the only result. Shumla is 
fifty miles from Varna, and in order to ride the distance 
more comfortably in one day, Lord Raglan proposed to 
Marshal Saint-Arnaud that they should not pay their visit 
in uniform, as Omar Pasha would doubtless receive them 
equally well if they appeared in easy-fitting plain clothes. 
The French marshal made no objection, and he and his 
staff started in wide-awake hats, and shooting jackets with 
gold-laced uniform trousers under them. Lord Raglan 
and his suite were similarly attired, but with plain overalls. 
When the cavalcade was approaching Shumla, orderlies 
brought tin boxes to the marshal and his staff, who halted 
for a few minutes, and proceeded to unpack cocked hats 
and feathers, laced jackets, swords, stars, crosses, and 
medals, all of which they donned with. the greatest com- 
placency, while the English general and his staff, helpless 
in their sober mufti, looked on with astonishment. At the 
gate of the town the Turkish guard turned out and pre- 
sented arms to the French officers. It turned in when the 
English officers rode up to the gate. Omar Pasha had the 
good taste to receive the two commanders-in-chief exactly 
alike, and to tell Lord Raglan he was very glad to see him 
in plain clothes, which he begged to be allowed to treat as 
an intimation that he considered him a friend. The Eng- 
lish general, with his noble simplicity of character, merely 
replied that it was a long day’s ride, and that he had felt 
sure Omar Pasha would not object to his coming in the 
most comfortable dress. On this occasion the Grand Cross 
of the Legion of Honor was formally promised by the 
marshal to Omar Pasha, while Lord Raglan in his turn 
announced that the Grand Cross of the Bath would be 
conferred on him. ‘The sultan had already been invested 
with the Garter, and much surprise and curiosity were 
evinced by the Turks, who declared they had never heard 
of a Bath being used for anything but cleanliness, nor of 
a stocking being kept up by a gold-embroidered garter as a 
mark of distinction. ‘ Mashallah!’ they exclaimed, ‘the 
English are the fathers of funny freaks!’ ” 


CLT) 


ARN 


7 


SAINT 


MARSHAL 


si ' hy 7 


eS 


ne : 
i _ a i “—_ - 
+4, 1 . om 7 ae” : 
Pe ak, ; “ae _ . 
“al 8 : 
Ne 
sy 
: y 
z CUKERSOW GF WLLINDIS 
1 
j a ; 
fis 
‘ . 
s i 
. <3 
a 
i ' - 
i 
cl ‘ 
mf 
2 . i 
: i 
} 
¥ A 
we! 
i : - ro 
* = a 4 Fl 7 ui 
i : re * 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 125 


In spite of the beauty of the country around Varna, and 
the excellent sport, the armies became very desirous to 
move elsewhere. Ague, cholera, and dysentery broke out, 
and the troops gladly heard the trumpet-call that summoned 
them to fold their tents and march away. 

And yet the war might have been ended by diplomacy, 
after the cause of war was removed by the retreat of the 
Russian army from the principalities, but the Emperor 
Napoleon had his policy to carry out, and England was 
beside herself with a passion for war, and a craving for 
adventure. 

Immediately on receipt of the news of the raising of the 
siege of Silistria and the retreat of the Russian army, 
the Duke of Newcastle, then war minister of England, 
proposed that the allied armies should go and attack 
Sebastopol. 

Sebastopol, as every one knows now, stands at the south- 
ern extremity of the peninsula of the Crimea, and is a port 
on the Black Sea. The Emperor Nicholas had made it a 
great naval station. He had built there an immense arsenal, 
and had filled the place with stores and munitions of war, 
in case of needing them in any advance into the Turkish 
territory, because they could thence be conveyed to almost 
any point by sea. It was of immense strength, especially 
in its outworks, and the Russian fleet, which had destroyed 
that of the Turks at Sinope, lay under its guns. The Duke 
of Newcastle prepared his instructions for Lord Raglan to 
make this important movement, in fact to open the second 
campaign of the war, and he read this despatch to his col- 
leagues after a dinner at Richmond. None of them 
objected ; so little was known of the Crimea, or of Sebas- 
topol, that there were no grounds for objection. No one 
dissented from his views. ‘The despatch was forwarded to 
Lord Raglan. It was very peremptory, leaving him no dis- 
cretion, and it was backed by similar orders to Saint- 
Arnaud from his emperor. 

There was not an officer in high command in the armies 


126 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


at Varna who did not disapprove the project. Lord Raglan 
was opposed to it, as also were the chief engineer officer 
of the expedition, his fellow in the councils of the Duke 
of Wellington, the English admiral, and vice-admiral, and 
Saint-Arnaud. But the latter was at the moment ill, 
worried, and dispirited. He shook off all responsibility, 
and said that he should follow the lead of the English 
commander. 

Neither the French nor English had any certain informa- 
tion as to the state of the defences or the strength of the 
garrison at Sebastopol. Some said that it contained one 
hundred and twenty thousand men, some seventy thousand, 
some seventeen thousand. Lord Raglan could obtain no 
clear intelligence. But the despatch from the Duke of 
Newcastle was, as I said, very peremptory. It nettled the 
old soldier. He determined to yield his own military 
judgment, and to obey orders. 


‘‘T cannot help seeing,” wrote the Duke of Newcastle, in a 
letter of reply to one from Lord Raglan, “I cannot help seeing 
through the calm and noble tone of your announcement of the 
decision to attack Sebastopol, that it has been taken in order to 
meet the views and desires of government, and not in entire 
accordance with your own opinions. God grant that success 
may reward you, and justify us!” 


It was, however, imperatively necessary to remove the 
armies from Varna as speedily as possible. The French 
had brought cholera with them to the Dardanelles. It first 
showed itself at Gallipoli, and now in the swamps at Varna 
it grew terrible. General Canrobert’s division of the French 
army, which was marched into the low country round the 
mouths of the Danube, was decimated by it. In one day’s 
march, and in the space of a few hours, hundreds of men 
sometimes dropped down in the sudden agonies of the dis- 
ease ; and out of one battalion it was said that, besides the 
dead, there were five hundred sick carried along in wagons. 
By the middle of August out of three French divisions ten 
thousand men lay dead or ill from cholera. The English 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 127 


admiral ran his ships out to sea, hoping that in untainted 
air they might escape infection, but the disease attacked 
the sailors with especial virulence. ‘Then was shown the 
feeling and humanity of British officers, and the childlike 
trust felt in them by their men. “ Partly by cheering 
words,” says an eye witness, ‘“‘and partly by wild remedies, 
invented in despair of all regular medical aid, the officers 
really did sometimes succeed in fighting the disease, or made 
the men think they did.” 

The generals at last could not but feel that to go to the 
Crimea was better than ‘to linger among the atmospheric 
poisons of the Bulgarian coast ; besides which they knew that 
bitter would be the disappointment of the people of Eng- 
land to see the army sent back to Malta, and forced to give 
up the conflict for the bare reason that some of the men 
were in hospital, and that the rest, without being ill, were 
miserably weak.”’ 

On August 24, 1854, the operation of embarking the 
allied armies began. The English embarked sixty pieces 
of field-artillery with their horses and equipments, twenty 
thousand infantry, and one thousand cavalry. But embark- 
ing cavalry horses is a difficult and tedious business. It 
cannot be done in a rough sea, and it was some days before 
the English men and horses were on board ship, without, 
however, the loss of a single man. It had been intended 
that in order to make the descent on the Crimea a surprise 
to the Russians, the allied armies should get there as quickly 
as possible by means of steam, but the French resources in 
steam were not equal to the emergency, and it was evi- 
dent that the expedition would be clogged by. slow-sailing 
transports. 

On the 5th of September Marshal Saint-Arnaud decided 
to set sail with such ships as he had ready, leaving the 
English to follow with the transports as soon as their horses 
could be got on board. The French army had no cavalry. 

The 7th of September, when the fleet sailed out of Baljik 
Bay, was a lovely morning. Moonlight was still floating on 


128 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


the waters, when in the east appeared the dawn. The 
French went out of harbor quickly. Their transports, which 
were small, seemed a swarm. The English followed in five 
columns of thirty vessels each, and then — guard over all 
— sailed the English war fleet, prepared to protect the rest 
in case the enemy had news of their expedition, and his 
fleet should sail out of Sebastopol to attack them. 

“The Black Sea,” says Mr. Kinglake, “is a far better 
name than the Euxine. It zs a Black Sea, and no scientific 
man has been able to account for the difference between 
its climate and that of the balmy, fertile shores that sur- 
round it.” 

Marshal Saint-Arnaud, who had sailed off with the French 
war vessels, without waiting to consult Lord Raglan, sailed 
on day after day into worse and worse weather, till at last, 
alarmed by his isolation, he decided to sail back again to 
Baljik Bay and try to rejoin the English and his own forces. 
He met with Lord Raglan the day after the English fleet 
left the Bulgarian harbor, and thenceforward there occurred 
no more ebullitions of petulance, nor did Marshal Saint- 
Arnaud show any more tendency to break away from his 
colleague. 

That night when the French generals were informed 
where the expedition was going, a number of them signed 
a paper setting forth the difficulties that they foresaw in 
landing at all in the Crimea, and in short virtually protest- 
ing against carrying out the scheme. Saint-Arnaud was 
very ill at the time, — unable to bear discussion. He said 
he would adopt the decision of Lord Raglan. It may be 
right to say here that General Trochu (who was afterwards 
commander of Paris during the siege in 1870) had been 
placed with Saint-Arnaud as head of his staff, and his con- 
fidential adviser. He wholly disapproved of the Crimean 
project, and was sent by Saint-Arnaud to confer with Lord 
Raglan. Lord Raglan quietly put aside the paper signed 
by the French generals, without inviting discussion. He was 
a real head, and things fell at once into obedience to him. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 129 


On Sept. 9 the fleet was off the coast of the Crimea, and 
on the morning of the roth, a fair, bright Sunday morning 
with the bells ashore ringing for church, Lord Raglan first 
saw the forts, and the ships, and the gayly cupolaed town, 
that was to become so famous in history. Rounding a cape 
he next saw two old Genoese forts guarding the entrance to 
that arm of the sea which divides Sebastopol into two parts. 
In the distance he saw the heights, the fatal heights to so 
many who then looked on them for the first time, fatal to 
both commanders, — the heights of Sebastopol. 

Having reconnoitred the unknown coast himself, for the 
whole country was as strange to French and English as if 
they had been the Argonauts, Lord Raglan decided to dis- 
embark to the west of Sebastopol. He fixed ona broad 
sandy bit of beach near the bright little village of Eupatoria. 
By this time Marshal Saint-Arnaud had thrown off his attack 
of illness, and was himself again. 

The Tartars of the country proved to be very willing to 
open a provision market for the supply of the allied troops. 
A few Russian coins were obtained from some English 
travellers, who had not (like the government) forgotten that 
English sovereigns will not pass current among the peasants 
of Scythia. In two days the men were landed, but it took 
four more to get ashore the horses. English horses are 
not, as a rule, so sensible, obedient, and tractable as Ameri- 
can horses. In five days all were on shore, but alas !— the 
cholera came with them, and the first duty of the soldiers 
was to dig graves. 

The Turks provided for their own comfort much sooner 
than the French and English, and the English and French 
officers, who had no tents with them, were glad to find some 
shelter in those of the Turkish officers. 

Soon the head-men of the villages began to come in, and 
they seemed not unfriendly to the invaders. In the villages, 
strange as they appeared in most respects to English eyes, 
officers found here and there houses with pianos, music-’ 
books, and other signs of refinement. One main want of 

2 


130 XUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THEOAIXT® CENTURY. 


the country was water, but the English quartermaster- 
general caused wells at once to be sunk. The army was 
accompanied by no camp followers to make mischief among 
the population, and very soon friendly feelings were estab- 
lished between the English soldiers and the Tartar peas- 
antry, the soldiers helping the women in their household 
labors. The Rifles, an English crack regiment, were their 
favorites, and, when the soldiers came to understand some- 
thing of the speech of the peasantry, it was found that the 
women designated the Rifles as “heroes stronger than 
lions, and quieter than lambs.” Alas! it was as lions, not 
as lambs, that the Zouaves subsequently made themselves 
known to them. 

The army landed in the Crimea was twenty-seven thousand 
English, thirty-seven thousand French and Turks, —in all, 
sixty-four thousand men. On the morning of Sept. 19 the 
armies began their march southward. We need not attempt 
any description of that march. The movement of armies is 
interesting only if one takes a good map of the country on 
which to study them; abridged, the narrative becomes an 
unintelligible mass of dry details. And the same may be 
said of battles. 

The first river crossed was called the Bulganak, and here 
it was that the Russian soldiers first appeared. The next 
morning they were found in force in an entrenched camp, 
prepared to dispute the passage of the river Alma. 

Prince Mentzikoff (he who had precipitated the war 
when ambassador at Constantinople) was in command of 
the Russian forces. ‘He was,” says Mr. Kinglake, “a 
wayward, presumptuous man, and his bearing toward the 
generals under his command was of such a kind that he 
did not, or could not, strengthen himself by the counsel of 
men abler than himself. In time past he had been mutilated 
by a round shot from a Turkish gun. He bore hatred 
against the Ottoman race. He bore hatred against their 
faith, He had opened his mission at the Porte with in- 
sults, he had closed it with threats, and now he was out on 


THE CRIMEAN WAR, I31 


a hillside with horse and foot, empowered to take full 
vengeance on his enemies, Christian and infidel.” 

It was Sept. 20, 1854, that the battle of the Alma was 
fought. The two allied commanders went alone together 
early in the morning to a hill, and surveyed the field of ac- 
tion. Prince George of England (the Duke of Cambridge) 
commanded an English division ; Prince Napoleon (son of 
King Jerome) commanded a French one. 

“The whole allied armies, hiding nothing of their splen- 
dor, or their strength,” says Mr. Kinglake, “descended 
slowly into the valley, and the ground on the bank of the 
Alma on which they were is so even and gentle in its slope, 
while the bank on which the Russians were was so com- 
manding, that every man of the invaders could be seen 
from the opposite side.” 

For the first half of the day the allies gained little. The 
heaviest fire of the enemy seemed always directed against 
the spot where Lord Raglan and his staff were standing. 
The fire was terrible at some parts of the day. The High- 
landers and the Coldstream Guards were mowed down by 
grape-shot after the river was crossed, and they were ad- 
vancing up the hill to take the Russian batteries; but the 
Russian position was carried by storm, and its commanding 
officer made prisoner. 

Here is a sad little story which to most of us will have 
more interest than mere military details of the battle : — 


“Colonel Beckwith was seen leading his battalion of the 
Rifle Brigade with cool gallantry to the steep ascent, after ford- 
ing the Alma. He disappeared in an unaccountable manner. 
His body was not found among the slain. Two days aiter the 
battle an ordnance wagon, which had been left behind near the 
stream, was sent for. Colonel Beckwith was found lying under 
it dead. He had died of cholera. He was an officer who had 
served with credit twenty-five years. He had just attained the 
highest regimental rank; he commanded, and was leading into 
action, one of the finest corps of men in the army. Had he 
been shot, a nation would have mourned him; but he was com- 
pelled to fall out in the agonies of cholera, to creep under this 


132 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT!. CENTURY. 


wagon, and to lie there alone like a dog. It was not long after 
he had died that he was found. Had help come earlier they 
might have saved him.” 


‘‘The brunt of the battle,” says a diplomatist who was 
present, ‘fell on the English, for the French commander 
here first displayed his serious intention of giving his army 
an unfair advantage through Lord Raglan’s excess of cour- 
tesy. Heclaimed the right flank on the march from Eupa- 
toria, the right being protected by the guns of the fleet, 
while the English columns marched with no protection. 
Thus it happened that the English had to storm the 
strongest Russian positions, while those attacked by the 
French were the most weakly defended. No doubt the 
French would have stormed the Russian positions as well 
as the English, but their general had assigned them easier 
ground.” 

Saint-Arnaud, however, did full justice to Lord Raglan. 
Writing to his emperor, he says, “The antique courage of 
the English general was splendid to see.” He wrote this, 
too, without having seen, as so many others did, Lord 
Raglan sitting in his saddle with placid composure under 
a tremendous fire of artillery and small arms, quietly con- 
versing with Prince Napoleon, who had dismounted to 
dodge the shot, “ knowing,” as some one remarked at the 
time, “that napoleons were scarce, and what was their 
value.” 

It was observed after the battle that the dead were out of 
all proportion to the wounded, the Russians having reserved 
their fire till the assailants were at very short range. 

When the battle was over, and the Russians were in 
retreat, Lord Raglan refused to allow any pursuit. He had 
only his Light Brigade of cavalry, one thousand strong, and 
he feared to risk its being cut off. No prisoners therefore 
were taken, except the wounded. 

The Russian soldiers, who had shown great steadiness 
and bravery during the fight, and began their retreat in good 
order, were seized with a sudden panic after all danger was 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. I38 


over, and fancying themselves pursued, when there was 
really a long distance between themselves and any English 
or French soldiers, pressed in wild confusion into the river 
Katschov ; and even after they had crossed it a further panic 
hurried them on toward Sebastopol. 

It is said that just at the turn of the battle Prince 
Mentzikoff, observing some wavering at an important point, 
galloped off to see if his presence would strengthen the 
position. ‘The country was very rolling. Having descended 
an eminence, he could see little before him. As he hur- 
ried along the great high-road, he saw coming toward him 
a solitary man on foot. Nearing him, he found it was 
Prince Gortschakoff. “You here?” he cried. “‘ Where’s 
your horse, — your staff,— your men?” “My horse is 
shot, my staff all killed or wounded, my men dispersed.” 

The news of the battle of the Alma reached Queen 
Victoria at Balmoral, and caused great rejoicings, mingled 
with grief for those who mourned for friends ; but so totally 
ignorant was everybody at the time of the true situation of 
affairs that when a false telegram, based on the loose talk 
of a Tartar peasant, came the next day, saying that Sebas- 
topol was taken, all the members of the Cabinet believed 
it, except Lord Clarendon. 

The allied armies made brief stay on the left bank of 
the Alma before continuing their march to Sebastopol. 
They had no tents, no pack-horses, no provision for win- 
ter, no warm clothing. It was already autumn, and the 
climate was severe. Sebastopol, it was supposed by friends 
in England, would be carried by a coup de main, and the 
army would be home by Christmas, to be féted, and glori- 
fied, and keep the universal holiday with gladness and 
good cheer. 


CHAPTER? WVIt- 
THE CRIMEAN WAR (concluded). 


(CRN was the rejoicing in the English, French, and 
Turkish allied armies over what Mr. Kinglake calls 
‘the scramble of the Alma.” 

It was some days before they could go forward, it being 
necessary to ship off the wounded to Constantinople. The 
Russian army under Prince Mentzikoff had fallen back in 
great disorder to Sebastopol, where it was re-formed, and 
then marched off, the English knew not whither, — though 
indeed they had little knowledge of any kind of their enemy 
or of his movements, and fancied that at least a large part 
of the army they had fought at the Alma was strengthening 
Sebastopol. 

In 1870 the Germans owed their marvellous and speedy 
success in their campaign against the French largely to the 
excellence of their maps and their minute knowledge of the 
country. In 1854 neither the French nor English generals, 
nor any one connected with their armies, appears to have 
known anything about the topography of the Crimea, or 
the defences of Sebastopol. The authentic military infor- 
mation that they had upon the subject was nineteen years 
old. The Russians had been unwilling to admit strangers 
into Sebastopol after it became a naval station, and the best 
recent account concerning it that the authorities possessed 
was from that charming writer and enterprising traveller, 
Mr. Laurence Oliphant, who, however, earnestly advised 
them either to attack Russia through her Caucasian prov- 
inces, or to occupy and defend the Isthmus of Perekop, 
instead of besieging Sebastopol. 


GENERAL TODLEBEN. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 135 


Perhaps before going further I had better try to present 
some intelligible plan of Sebastopol, though without a map 
it may be difficult to do so. We may fancy the extreme 
southern part of the peninsula of the Crimea (the Crimea 
is almost as large as Ireland) shaped like a wolf’s head 
looking southwest with the mouth partly open. ‘The open 
mouth represents the roadstead, within which there is an 
inner harbor, where the Russian fleet of eight line-of-battle 
ships was lying. The roadstead, or rather arm of the sea 
extending four miles inland, divides the city into two parts. 
The houses on the southern side are nestled in a little 
valley. On the other side of the harbor, on the northern 
bank of the inlet, was a fortification called the Star Fort. 
It was the only defence of Sebastopol on its northern side, 
and the harbor or inlet lay between it and the town. 
Sebastopol had no walls, but was protected by very strong 
bastions or redoubts. The names of some of these are 
now very familiar. They were the little Redan, the Mala- 
koff, the Redan, the Telegraph Fort, and three or four 
others. These all extended from Inkerman west of the 
inlet toward Balaclava. The country was up-hill and 
down-dale, rolling and rocky, entirely unwooded, cut up by 
ravines and gorges. The great high-road to St. Peters- 
burg, a thousand miles away, ran straight, and white, and 
unobstructed, into the northern part of the city. Balaclava 
was a small seaport to the east of the town, with a harbor 
so surrounded by high cliffs, and with so land-locked an 
entrance, that it looked like a still lake. There was another 
landing-place which the French made into a port not very 
far to the south of it. Balaclava was east of Sebastopol, 
and therefore the allies, who had landed on the western 
coast of the Crimea, had to cross from the west coast to the 
east coast to get there. Besides ravines and hilly ridges, 
the ground was cut up by little mountain rivulets which 
made swamps in low places, though the rest of the ground 
was sterile. 

The arm of the sea of which I have spoken as dividing 


136 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


the city of Sebastopol is joined by the little river Tchernaya 
near the ruins called Inkerman. 

This is avery imperfect attempt to give an idea of Sebas- 
topol, its position and its outworks, but it may possibly 
assist somewhat in conveying a faint conception of the scene 
of action. 

The question between the commanders of the French 
and English forces, after they had crossed the river Alma, 
was, At what point should they attack Sebastopol? Lord 
Raglan wanted to push on at once, take the Star Fort by 
surprise, and thence, across the harbor, bombard the town ; 
the allied fleets at the same time engaging the Russian 
fleet, forcing their way into the harbor, and assisting in the 
attack. But Marshal Saint-Arnaud would not listen to this 
plan, and in truth it seemed hazardous to many of the best 
military engineers in the English army. We know now 
that there was no large Russian army in Sebastopol, as was 
supposed at the time ; and that if Lord Raglan’s plan had 
been carried out, it might have been successful. However, 
no plan could be followed that was opposed by either the 
English or the French commander. So a singular and 
very different plan was proposed by Lord Raglan, and 
accepted by Saint-Arnaud. ‘This was to attack Sebastopol 
on what is called the south side, instead of by the Star Fort 
on what is called the north side, —to march the armies 
right across the lower end of the peninsula of the Crimea, 
to seize the port of Balaclava, to which the fleet and trans- 
ports would move round ; to fix batteries upon the heights, 
and thence bombard the city. This march of the armies 
from west to east is called in history the flank march, and 
was extremely perilous. Had Prince Mentzikoff, who was , 
outside Sebastopol, at large in the Crimea, attacked the 
allies on their march, the consequences might have been 
disastrous in the extreme. He had quitted Sebastopol, 
insisting, to the grief and indignation of the naval men in 
the city, that of the eight beautiful great men-of-war in the 
harbor, all but one (‘The Twelve Apostles’’) should be 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. a7 


sunk across the mouth of the roadstead, and so prove (as 
they did) a complete defence to the city on the side of the 
water. ‘lhe crews were taken on shore, and were set to 
work the guns that defended the bastions. 

The allied armies therefore made the flank march, and 
the English took possession of the little port of Balaclava. 
As Lord Raglan, who had been foremost all the way in 
reconnoitring, sat on his horse watching what seemed to him 
a still smooth pool of water, suddenly there glided into sight 
an English ship with English colors flying, between two 
high cliffs which screened the entrance to the harbor. 

It was arranged that the English should hold Balaclava 
for their port, and that the French should content them- 
selves with a less advantageous landing-place. 

The allied armies were in position early in October. 
Here is an eye-witness’s account of the harbor of Bala- 
clava on the sixth day of that month, 1854 : — 


“As we sailed round the southernmost extremity of the 
Crimea past Sebastopol, the fine day showed to great advantage 
the blue scarped masses of the interior. Every second moun- 
tain seemed a natural fortress. It was like passing a series of 
Gibraltars. Sebastopol we reconnoitred at a respectful dis- 
tance. A jet of light smoke leapt every now and then from the 
forts. In less than an hour after passing 1t we were steam- 
ing into the harbor of Balaclava, skirted less with shores than 
walls.” 


The harbor was strewn with the bloated carcasses of dead 
horses, which the steam-tugs were dragging out into the open 
sea. The smell was overpowering, accounting largely for the 
general prevalence of disease. Our eye-witness goes on to 
say that the place reminded him of some parts of Ireland 
where stone is plenty, and nothing else, and where whitewash 
does duty for repairs. Lord Raglan’s abode at Balaclava was 
not much above the level of the general wretchedness. 
Before the door paced a sentry, ‘‘ whose get-up was not at 
all out of keeping with his surroundings. He had a soiled 
red coat; its ragged worsted tags were the reverse of orna- 


138 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE X1IXTH CENTURY. 


mental, and its open collar showed neither stock nor shirt. 
His rusty black trousers gaped vainly here and there for 
buttons, and were tucked up unceremoniously at the heels to 
keep them dry. His boots were the color of the dust they 
trod on, so were his Saxon locks and sun-burnt face. 
Nevertheless there was that about his quiet, honest bearing 
which would I think have proclaimed him, even without the 
distinctive red, a British soldier.’’? 

The ships had by this time brought in a few tents, and 
the greatest activity prevailed upon the heights, where 
batteries were being erected to attack the Russian outworks ; 
though not a shot was to be fired till all were in position. - 
Everything had to be dragged up the steep hills from 
Balaclava. All the @vadas, or country carts, were pressed 
into the service. Some were drawn by little Tartar horses, 
some by camels, but most by bullocks. The men who 
owned them, though prisoners after a fashion, served the 
English not unwillingly ; they were paid twenty-five dollars 
a month, —to them a little fortune; but Mr. Kinglake 
says sadly that before the siege ended nearly all of them 
had died. 

The gentleman from whom I have already quoted pushed 
to the front, that is, to the heights where batteries were 
being erected by one of the English divisions. There he 
was asked to dine with the general of the division and his 
staff, and this is what he saw of camp-life that evening : — 

‘“A single wax candle set in the bare ground lighted the 
interior. Canvas bags, cloaks, and water-proofs strewed 
around hid the bare earth, and on them reclined, like the 
ancients the general and his staff. I was accommodated 
with .the only seat, that is, a portmanteau.”’ The dress of 
the officers was their fatigue uniform, and each wore his 
forage cap during the meal. 

The English officers had bell-tents, that is, tents with a 
pole in the centre, and a circular wall of canvas round the 
bottom. The men had at first no tents at all, or little 


1 Blackwood’s Magazine. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 139 


“kennel tents,” only a foot or two high, under which they 
crept for warmth and shelter. There were no means of 
washing, even for the officers, and the eye-witness, who was 
a young lawyer, exclaims: “ ‘Think of the unutterable 
horrors of a state of things where neither the clothing can 
be changed nor the body cleansed for weeks on weeks. 
Think of men, born and trained as our officers are trained, 
undergoing all this without complaint. The sea is too dis- 
tant for bathing, and, though there are little springs in 
neighboring hollows, nobody has anything to carry the 
water in. The men have tin pans that they use for cook- 
ing, and the officers sometimes borrow them for basins, 
when half a pint of water can be secured.” 

The coloring of the landscape in October was a uniform 
drab. No vegetation was visible. ‘There had been some 
good vineyards on the rocky slopes round Balaclava, but 
they were sear and grapeless in October. ‘There were no 
trees of any growth, only scrub oaks and shrubs, — just the 
brown earth, bristling with bunches of burnt up, star-headed 
thistles, with not a field flower except an occasional anemone. 
The English camp was between three and four miles long, 
stretching from the eastern part of the plateau (divided 
by a gorge from the old ruins of Inkerman) to a ravine on 
the south, where the French camp began, and continued 
the cordon to the sea. Thus it will be perceived that 
Sebastopol was by no means invested. The great high- 
road to Saint Petersburg lay open from it into the interior ; 
nothing menaced the Star Fort, nor the peninsula on which | 
it stood, called in Russian books the Severnaya. ‘The 
English army was distributed in six divisions. The last 
to arrive was the cavalry, —a splendid corps. The Scots 
Greys had come out, — heavy dragoons wearing bear-skin 
caps, and their horses all one color. 

The tents, when tents arrived, were so small that the 
officers stored their spare belongings on the outside, and 
theft appears to have been unknown among the soldiers. 
Indeed, throughout the campaign there was very little 
crime. 


140 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


But there was plenty of sickness, — cholera and dysentery, 
scurvy and malarial fever, —and a great lack of hospital 
surgeons, and hospital comforts. Pillows especially were 
calied for, and had not been supplied. But the two greatest 
wants were firewood and warm clothing. The men’s uni- 
forms had been worn threadbare, and the English govern- 
ment, never having contemplated a prolonged winter 
campaign in the Crimea, and knowing little or nothing of 
the Black Sea climate, had not provided for these wants in 
time. Under pressing requisitions for great-coats, blankets, 
etc., a quantity were collected in haste, and all shipped on 
board the ‘“ Prince,’’ which reached the harbor of Balaclava 
just in time to encounter a furious storm on November 5, 
which tore down the tents, greatly damaged the shipping, 
and sank the “ Prince.” Weeks of November and December 
weather had to pass before the loss could be supplied. 
The soldiers, subject to these privations and to the pre- 
valence of disease, ‘‘could hardly have been recognized ” 
as an officer remarked, “for the same men who had landed 
at Gallipoli.” | 

On Oct. 17 the French and English batteries were all 
prepared and the bombardment of the city was begun. 
The firing all day was tremendous, but during the night 
the Russians, who had General Todleben, then a young 
officer, for their engineer-in-chief, repaired all the mischief 
done by the French and English guns during the day. 

On Oct. 25 took place the battle of Balaclava. I do not 
think it was very much of a battle, if we compare it with 
such fights as Blenheim, Austerlitz, or even Chancellorsville 
or Gettysburg, but it will live forever in history and litera- 
ture as famous for the charge of the Light Brigade. 

The Russian army outside the walls of Sebastopol was 
under the command of General Liprandi, who had replaced 
Prince Mentzikoff. He came creeping up behind the 
English and French positions, and attacked them just 
where the two armies came together, and where there was 
a battery of six guns that had been intrusted to the Turks. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. I4!I 


The Turks fired one volley, and then fled, to the intense 
disgust of Lord Raglan who hated Turks at all times, and 
of his whole army. The Russians captured the six cannon, 
and sang a Te Deum over them that night in Sebastopol. 
The battle would have been almost entirely an artillery 
fight, had it not been for two cavalry episodes, the charge 
of the Heavy Brigade (that is, the Dragoon Guards and 
the Scotch Greys) and the Light Brigade, under Lord 
Cardigan, colonel of the roth Huzzars. 

Lord Cardigan in his earlier days had been an officer 
who gave considerable trouble to the Horseguards. He 
quarelled with one of his officers Captain Harvey Phipps 
Tuckett, about a bottle of sparkling Moselle brought to the 
mess-table in the original black bottle. Captain Tuckett 
resigned his commission, and then challenged his late 
superior officer. They fought a duel, and Lord Cardigan 
was tried before the High Court of Peers. The trial was 
short, however, for an error was discovered in the indict- 
ment, where Captain Tuckett’s middle name had been 
omitted. But Lord Cardigan for some time subsequently 
was not on good terms with many of his officers. 

Many years after Lord Tennyson’s ‘“ Charge of the Light 
Brigade’ had become universally popular, the poet was in- 
duced to celebrate in verse the charge of the Heavy Brigade 
at Balaclava, but the poem never can attain the popularity 
of its predecessor. 


‘There was a tremendous charge of Russian cavalry, which 
came over the crest of the ridge that separated the armies, down 
into the valley between them. Those on the heights, both Rus- 
sians and allies, looked down upon the spectacle, unobscured 
by cannon-smoke, which is unusual ina battle. It was as if they 
were spectators in an arena gazing upon a fight of gladiators. 
The Scots Greys advanced first, impeded however by the 
drains and picket lines of their own encampment, but, soon 
extricating themselves, they were mingled among the Russians, 
their red coats, fur caps, and gray horses making them con- 
spicuous. Then came up the fourth and fifth regiments of 
Heavy Dragoons. For a moment sword-cuts and lance-thrusts 


142 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


were exchanged, then the Russians turned and fled confusedly 
over the slopes, pursued for several hundred yards by the whole 
force of the heavy cavalry. The Greys, broken before their 
comrades came up, rallied in time to join in the pursuit.” 4 


That is the story of the Heavy Brigade. 

The story of the Light Brigade, which was a body of 
cavalry made up of parts of several regiments, we all know 
partly. While the Heavies were engaged, the Light Brigade 
had advanced to the edge of the slopes, whence they could 
look down on the Russians as they rallied on their own side 
of the valley. On the slope the Russians had planted a bat- 
tery flanked by two others, to repel any attack that might 
be made on them. Captain Nolan, a brave Irish officer, who 
had written a book on tactics, brought an order to the com- 
mander of the Light Cavalry to charge the enemy, and to 
take their cannon. To do this with only cavalry seemed 
desperate, but Nolan asserted the order to be peremptory, 
and joining in the charge which presently took place, he 
was struck by a shell in the breast, and fell dead. 


“Never did cavalry show more daring to less purpose. Re- 
ceived in front and flank by a fire which strewed the ground 
for half a mile of the distance which separated them from the 
enemy with men and horses, they nevertheless forced their way 
between the guns, and slew the gunners. Their gallantry availed 
them nothing. The whole Russian force was before them. A 
body of Russian cavalry interposed to cut off their retreat across 
the valley, and, assailed on every side by every arm of the ser- 
vice, and their ranks utterly broken, they were compelled to fight 
their way back, and to regain their position under the same 
artillery fire that had crashed into their advance. Singly, or in 
twos or threes, these gallant horsemen returned, some on foot, 
many wounded, some supporting a stricken comrade. Thesame 
fire that had shattered their ranks had also reached the Heavy 
Cavalry, now rallied on the slope behind, who also suffered se- 
verely. The English loss would have been greater but for the 
timely charge of a body of French cavalry, which, descending 
from the plateau, advanced up the Russian heights, where they 
silenced a destructive battery.” 


1 Blackwood’s Magazine. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 143 


Such is the story in the words of a staff officer who wrote 
his narrative a few hours after the battle. ‘ Never did cav- 
alry show more daring to less purpose,” he says; and a 
Russian officer, speaking of it afterwards called it “ magnifi- 
cent folly.” And yet can we say that it had not its use and 
its lesson, — its encouragement, and its purpose? Whose 
sense of the duty of unquestioning obedience is not stirred 
when he says the words, ‘‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’’? 
It is one of the world’s great feats of arms, one of all soldiers’ 
great military lessons. It will act as a trumpet-call, as long 
as wars may last, to all English-speaking soldiers. It is 
almost the best good England, or the world, gathered from 
all the toils and sufferings of that Crimean War. 

The Light Brigade —that thousand men Lord Raglan 
had cherished so carefully from the time of his landing at 
Eupatoria — had in less than a month shrunk to the Six 
Hundred who made the charge. Of that six hundred, two 
hundred and seventy-eight were killed, wounded, or missing ; 
of these, twenty-one were officers ; and three hundred and 
thirty-five horses were destroyed. The Heavies lost over 
one hundred and sixty men, ten of whom were officers, and 
forty horses. 

Lord Tennyson’s first version of his poem contained a 
verse which he amended afterwards to soothe the feelings of 
the family of Captain Nolan, but he did not improve his 
poetry, or his facts, by the alteration. ‘“‘ Take the guns,’ 
Nolan said,” and “Some one had blundered,” add im- 
mensely to the spirit-stirring effect of the poem. 

Lord Raglan was bitterly grieved by the blunder com- 
mitted, and its consequences. A controversy on the subject 
subsequently sprang up between Lord Lucan, Lord Cardi- 
gan, and the commander-in-chief, which was carried into 
Parliament, and was not ended for several years. 

This charge of the Light Brigade pretty much ended the 
battle of Balaclava. The Russians kept possession of all 
that they had won for some hours. The battle began be- 
fore dawn, and the English fought fasting until after dark, 
when rum and biscuit were served out to them. 


Aq’ “RUSSIA AND OTORKEVAIN THEI A SCENE ORY, 


The Russians retired that night, having gained nothing by 
their battle. They had intended to surprise the English, and 
to force their way between the two parts of the allied army. 
All the advantage they had gained was gained over the Turks. 

The next day an attack (called sometimes the first 
battle of Inkerman) was made upon the English, but the 
Russians were repulsed. 

On November 5 the Russian army, having been joined 
by the czar’s sons, the Grand Dukes Michael and Constan- 
tine, made another supreme effort. This is called the bat- 
tle of Inkerman, and is the last of the great battles fought 
around Sebastopol. ‘Thenceforward the military operations 
were those of bombardment rather than of battle. 

This battle of Inkerman began also before the gray dawn 
of a November day (the day of the great storm which 
wrecked the “ Prince’’), and it was fought fasting by the 
English. But the surprise intended by the Russians failed. 
Their loss was enormous. The battle was fought by both 
French and English serving together; indeed the French 
in one brilliant charge were led by an English general. 
By half-past three it was all over, and the whole force of 
the Russians had retired beyond the Tchernaya, the river 
which empties into the estuary on which Sebastopol is situ- 
ated. Eight thousand English and six thousand French 
were engaged in the battle of Inkerman; the Russian force 
was estimated by Lord Raglan at fifty thousand. 

It was said that the Russians killed wounded English sol- 
diers on the field. ‘This being represented under a flag of 
truce to the authorities in Sebastopol, the reply was “ that 
it could only have been done in individual instances, and 
that it must be remembered that the Russians were much 
exasperated by the destruction during the bombardment of 
one of the churches in Sebastopol.” 

Meantime a change of commanders had taken place 
among the French. Poor Saint-Arnaud had been desper- 
ately ill, as we have seen, on the voyage to Eupatoria. On 
landing, his extraordinary power of conquering bodily pain 
enabled him to seem to many as well as ever. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 145 


After the camp was formed he was attacked by cholera. 
Of this he was cured, but it left him no strength to stand 
the next attack of his chronic malady. On leaving France 
the Emperor Napoleon had given him General Trochu as 
chief of staff to advise him, Saint-Arnaud having had no 
experience in the command of a large army. But the 
emperor was secretive, and loved hidden ways. He had 
also given General Canrobert a commission (which was to 
be kept a profound secret until necessity called for its dis- 
closure), appointing him to succeed Marshal Saint-Arnaud, 
in case that commander should be disabled. 

The day before landing at Eupatoria, Canrobert, believing 
his chief to be dangerously ill, told him of this commission. 
Saint-Arnaud acquiesced in silence. When his next terrible 
attack came on it was necessary that he should have a 
conference with the English commander. He braced him- 
self rigidly in his chair, and went through the interview with 
fortitude ; but Lord Raglan, as he left him, remarked to a 
staff-officer that the French commander was dying. The 
next day he was too ill to do more than say: ‘“ Send for 
Canrobert.”’ 

Canrobert took the command. The dying marshal was 
carried on board a French man-of-war, a priest attending 
him. He had been on board only a few hours when he 
breathed his last. “He died en chrétien”’ said his 
spiritual adviser, and it was true that, reckless and dissolute 
as had been his life, he had never been a scoffer. He had 
also tender family affections. His last act on the morning 
of his embarkation had been to send his carriage and horses 
as a present to General Bosquet who had been his personal: 
enemy. 

General Canrobert had commanded the French troops: 
Dec. 2, 1851, in the massacre on the Boulevard, but this. 
was the only stain upon his reputation. He was red-faced,. 
blunt, and soldierly, — a great contrast to the Parisian type 
of the Frenchman in Saint-Arnaud. ‘ Poor Saint-Arnaud ! 
I shall miss him, and regret him,’’ said the kindly Lord 

10 


146 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Raglan ; ‘‘ he was always friendly and pleasant in his inter- 
course with me.” 

And now, all the battles being over, nothing remained 
for the armies but the bombardment, the bleak winter, the 
chilling winds, the scanty fuel, the insufficient clothing — 
endurance, and still endurance, with work in the deep mud 
of the trenches, and the never ending roar of the round 
shot and the shells. 

This terrible suffering from sickness, starvation, bitter cold, 
and over-work, lasted from October, 1854, to the end of 
February, 1855. By that time stores and supplies had come 
in in great quantities, and a railroad from Balaclava to the 
heights, carried them up to the English encampment. After 
this the foes to be contended with were the Russians, the 
mud, and the climate of the Crimea. 

We must never forget that the French were so posted that 
their supplies could be landed near their camp. Besides 
which, the English army lay between their army and the 
Russians. The French could not be attacked until the 
English line was pierced. ‘Therefore all attacks fell first 
upon the British. 

«« As soon as a change of temperature checked the ravages 
of the cholera,” says the staff officer already quoted, “ the 
wet set in, bringing a new train of diseases. Horrible 
cramps seized those exposed sometimes for nights in suc- 
cession in the trenches. In their ragged garments and with 
feet almost bare, the soldiers paced the wet mud, or, 
wrapped in a single blanket, lay in holes, which they dug 
behind the batteries, shivering the livelong night. When 
relieved they crept back, not to the comfort of warm fires, 
and hot coffee, and sound sleep, for fuel was so scanty that it 
had to be searched for by the soldier, and sometimes 
brought miles in his arms before he could cook his ration ; 
and the coffee was issued unroasted, and unground, so that 
it was perfectly useless. All the wearied soldier off duty 
had to seek was the bleak shelter of his tent.” 

In December and January the sick in the English camp 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 147 


numbered as many as thirty-nine hundred in one day, and 
was never less than two thousand ; besides all those who were 
in hospital at Balaclava, or Scutari, or had been sent home to 
England. No wonder work fell heavily on those who were 
not sick ; no wonder that since the trenches must be held 
at any cost, the same men sometimes had to man them 
night after night because there were no others.! 

A force of working men was collected in England to 
labor in the trenches and to lay the railroad about six miles 
from Balaclava to the English position. Before this work 
could be accomplished all necessaries had to be brought 
painfully from Balaclava. Day after day men and horses, 
enfeebled by hardship, traversed the roads clogged by mire 
and snow, to and fro between the seashore and the encamp- 
ment. Sometimes the soldiers walked there and_ back, 
twelve miles, to get their rations, and did not break their 
fast till late in the day. The cavalry had to bring up their 
forage on their horses. A horse could carry a truss of hay, 
a wagon five or six trusses, but it required ten horses to 
draw it loaded, owing to the depth of the mud. 

** Let the reader,” says the staff-officer, “imagine in the 
coldest days of an English winter, the poorest family he has 
ever known, whose food is just sufficient to sustain exis- 
tence, whose fuel is mere stubble and trash picked up upon 
neighboring commons and hedges, who lie down hungry 
and cold at night to shiver till cheerless morning, and then 
remember that to all these privations must be added want 
of shelter from drenching rain and sleet and frost, and he 
will be able to realize the condition of the troops in front 
of Sebastopol after the end of October.” 


1 It was in this service that Capt. Hedley Vicars was killed, the 
Christian hero whose biography stirred many hearts in England and 
America. The public also was greatly interested in a book called 
“English Hearts and Hands,” an account written by Miss Kate Marsh, 
daughter of a well known rector of Leamington, describing mission 
work among the navvies collected at Sydenham to be sent out to the 
Crimea and relieve the soldiers from the work of digging in the 
trenches. — E. W. L. 


148 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


The blame for this lies chiefly with that press and that 
public which forced the ministry of the day to oblige Lord 
Raglan, against his better judgment, to undertake an enter- 
prise of which no one knew the hardships, and for which 
his army was entirely unprepared. Every one in England 
had expected that the gallant armies would carry Russia 
as it were by a coup de main, and by Christmas, after a 
glorious peace, be safe home on their own shores. ‘There- 
fore no preparations had been made for winter comforts or 
for winter clothing. Even the men’s overcoats were lost in 
the wreck of the ship that carried them, many were with- 
out drawers, flannel shirts, or new clothes till January, 
when these articles began to arrive in a profusion almost as 
embarrassing to the commissariat as their absence ; for by 
this time the poor horses had so died off that to get stores 
to the camp seemed beyond their powers. ‘The ships lay 
in the harbor with clothing to warm and huts to shelter the 
perishing troops, — succors no more available than if they 
had been a thousand miles away. 

“Our troops,” the staff-officer continues, “are paying 
the price of being Englishmen in this terrible winter. 
They are brave and indomitable, and will therefore be 
victorious ; but few and ill-provided for war, and therefore 
sorely distressed.”’ 

Three large hospitals had been established by the English 
on the coast of Asia Minor, nearly opposite Constantinople. 
To these hospitals were sent Miss Nightingale and her staff 
of nurses. On her arrival at Scutari she found at first 
absolutely nothing, — no beds, no comforts; and vessels 
were in sight bringing the wounded from the battle of the 
Alma. There were plenty of medical stores, but they could 
not be procured without orders from the proper officer ; 
and he was away. Then came in her power as a woman. 
She took the responsibility. She ordered a party of sol- 
diers to break open the doors, stood in the entrance, and 
saw everything distributed herself, and, by the time the 
sick were landed, all was ready for them. Miss Par- 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URBANA — 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 149 


thenope Nightingale and Miss Florence Nightingale were 
born respectively at Naples and at Florence. Miss Par- 
thenope married Sir Harry Verney, the papers of whose 
family she recently edited. Long before the Crimean 
War these ladies were known as foremost in good works. 
Men, themselves distinguished in philanthropic efforts, 
reverenced and admired them. 

I think the general idea of lady nurses in military hos- 
pitals or in the rear of armies is that they nurse the sick 
and tend the wounded. ‘These duties belong generally to 
hospital stewards; the ladies are rather the housekeepers, 
the administrators, the care-takers. Theirs is the feminine 
place in the hospitals. Like their less distinguished sisters, 
they: “‘rule.the house.’ “They see ‘to the cooking, they see 
that each man gets what the doctor has ordered for him. 


1 T feel myself permitted to transcribe a letter written in those days 
to an American friend by Miss Parthenope Nightingale : — 


EMBLEY PARK, RoMSEy, November 20, 1854. 


My DEAR Mrs. B ,—It is very long since we have had any 
communication; but I cannot help, now that my sister has set forth 
on what one of her friends calls the true crusade, writing you a 
few words. Has it reached you across the Atlantic that government 
has sent her out on a mission to the hospitals at Scutari? I think it 
will be shortest to send you Mr Herbert’s letter, and a little sketch of 
her, written we know not by whom, but very correct. The letter was 
published without our leave, but it saves me so much explanation 
that I must send it, for I am overdone with writing We have been 
organizing a second detachment of nurses in case she writes for them, 
and the quantity of offers of all kinds (old linen, books, money, knitted 
things, etc.) to any amount have been extraordinary; as also nurses 
of all grades and kinds, — 367 was the last number I set down. From 
the highest to the lowest, the enthusiasm for her has been something 
wonderful; even the railroads refused to be paid for her boxes. We 
have refused to give her picture to the newspapers; but they say that 
fancy portraits have been made of her, so that we shall perhaps repent 
ourselves; but we did not like putting her as it were into the glare of 
day. Dear Mrs. B——, I ought perhaps to excuse this monotheme ; 
but I feel sure you will be interested about her, With the united kind 
regards of my father and mother to yourself and Mr. B——, 

Believe me yours sincerely, 
PARTHO NIGHTINGALE. 


15O RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


They keep the supplies of comforts under their care, and 
see to their proper distribution. The laundries are under 
their supervision. They have everything ready for the 
arrival of the sick; they see that every convalescent goes 
away comfortably provided. They perform all offices of 
kindness for men who are sick or dying, cheer them, write 
letters for them, stand by them, if necessary, in supreme 
moments, direct everything in obedience to the doctors, 
see that nothing is left undone. Probably, when Miss 
Nightingale reached Scutari, there was no organization 
among her nurses. There were about forty women with 
her. Eight were Protestant ladies, ten were Sisters of 
Charity, and the rest were attendants, or professional nurses, 
who had had experience. 

By the end of January there were five thousand sick in 
these three English hospitals. Each day in the largest hos- 
pital about sixty died. The dead were sewed up in their 
blankets, laid in the dead-house, carried in country carts to 
the burial ground, where each day’s dead were laid in one 
pit, and the English chaplain read the burial service over 
them. 

The hospitals were well heated, for that winter of 185 4- 
1855 was especially cold. It seems as if the Winter King 
was always on the side of Russia. Hospital supplies too were 
abundant and of the best kind. 

“In the great kitchen of the great hospital,” says one 
who visited them, “ rice pudding, manufactured on a large 
scale, was transferred, smoking, by an enormous ladle to the 
destined plates; beef tea and mutton broth were being 
cooked in large caldrons such as the witches danced round 
in Macbeth, and flocks of poultry were simmering into 
boiled fowls or chicken broth.” 

It is pleasant to look upon this picture after thinking of 
the privations in the camp before Sebastopol. Some con- 
valescents were sent back to the army; but, alas, few of 
them that winter supported a renewal of their hardships, 
and nearly all died. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. I51I 


In the middle of March a most surprising piece of news 
reached Lord Raglan at Sebastopol. ‘The Emperor Nich- 
olas is dead. Reliable,” was all that was said by the tele- 
graphic message. The English commander could not 
believe it; but the next day came the same news to 
General Canrobert. 

He was gone, — the Agamemnon among European kings, 
— taller by head and shoulders, bodily, than the rest, and 
taller metaphorically. He was a man who, until his un- 
happy quarrel with England, had aimed to stand before the 
world as a man of honor. His mighty heart had been 
broken. He may not physically have died of a broken 
heart (few people do) ; but he died of the war, its disap- 
pointments, its anxieties, its worries. 

The feeling of the mass of the Russian people toward 
the Emperor Nicholas was almost the awe and reverent 
affection mankind might feel for a demigod. His nobles. 
chafed under the sternness of his administration; but to 
Russians in general he seemed a kind of divine personage, 
whose will could not be disputed without impiety. There 
was no nobler moment in the life of Nicholas than that in 
which he braved a howling mob who were accusing the 
Poles and the doctors of being the authors of the cholera. 
He went down into the midst of them, and suddenly throw- 
ing back his large cloak, exclaimed in his commanding 
voice: “ Wretches! down on your knees, — down every 
one of you, and pray the Father in heaven to pardon 
those sins that have brought the pestilence upon you ; for. 
it is those sins that have brought it into your homes!” 

His courage never forsook him. His mind was vigorous 
to the last; but his physical powers gave way under the 
accumulation and complication of his responsibilities. He 
was head of the Greek Church in Russia, and he con- 
scientiously believed himself to be the heaven-appointed 
protector of Greek Christians in the land of the Infidel. 
To him the war with Turkey (and the Crimean War itself) 
was a holy war, and with this feeling he inspired his people. 


152 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIX1TH CENTURY. 


Throughout the whole of his arduous career he was actu- 
ated and upheld by a sense of duty. He lived and died in 
harness. He sacrificed himself continually to the position 
in which he thought he ought to move. If there was a 
fire in his capital the first man. there upon the coldest 
January night would be the emperor. Never does he seem 
to have bestowed a thought on his own comfort as a man 
when it came in the way of what he considered his dignity 
as the czar of Russia. 

He rose regularly at seven o’clock in all seasons, and took 
a cold shower-bath ; then he slipped on an old military over- 
coat which he used as a dressing-gown, and looked over his 
papers. That done he took a cup of café noir, dressed, and 
walked round the palace in a sort of tour of inspection. 
In his own country no man ever saw him out of uniform. 
The only relaxation of dress that he ever permitted himself 
was sometimes in his study to take off his epaulets, or to 
unbutton the tight collar of his coat. At ten o’clock he 
always visited the empress, and passed half an hour with 
his family. He was faithful to the motto: ‘ Punctuality is 
the politeness of princes.’”’ No one ever found him one 
minute behind time, but he allowed five minutes’ grace to 
others. At two o’clock he went out, sometimes in a drosky, 
sometimes in a sleigh, according to the season, but more 
often on foot, and generally alone, wrapped in the large 
gray cloak worn by Russian officers. Many were his adven- 
tures in the streets, though it was forbidden to speak to 
him. 

Smoking he detested and discouraged, and would not 
allow a cigar on the streets of St. Petersburg; though one 
judges from the writings of Count Tolstoi that elsewhere 
the Russian officers smoked like other men. 

After dinner, at which he never sat more than half an 
hour, the emperor played for a while with his children. 
The only amusements he cared for in winter were the 
theatre and masked balls, and in summer, walks and drives 
with his family. He painted well himself in the style of 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 153 


Wouvermans, but for any such employment he had very 
little time. 

At eleven he usually went to bed, but would never allow 
himself to sleep until he had looked over every paper laid 
upon his table. Often at night, even in the coldest weather, 
he would get up and go out to inspect the guard-house and 
the sentries. 

About the age of forty he was in all the splendor of manly 
beauty, — “ Jupiter and Apollo combined,” says one of his 
admirers. He was considerably over six feet in height, his 
features were regular, his mouth was by turns severe or 
sweet, his voice magnificent. His walk was particularly fine. 
But he had no personal vanity, and it was hard to get him to 
spend money on his clothes. He said “ extravagance meant 
robbery of the poor.” A lady once said to him at a masked 
ball: “Do you know, Sire, that you are the handsomest 
man in Russia?’”’ “I did not know it, madam,” he replied ; 
“but if I am that is nobody’s concern but that of the 
empress.” 

He was capable of storms of passion, and also capable 
of making generous apologies when his anger had carried 
him too far. 

His mother had told him once that he must keep well 
with England. Hedid keep well with her for twenty years ; 
and he broke with her unwillingly, I cannot but think under 
circumstances of exceeding provocation. His great heart 
broke under the strain. During the last months of his life 
he was haunted by a dread of hereditary insanity; but 
although he became nervous and irritable, his mind was 
unclouded to the last. He made his preparations for death 
with perfect orderliness and composure. It is said that 
when the supreme moment approached he requested all 
those about him to leave his chamber that he might meet 
the great enemy face to face alone. 

He was succeeded by his son, Alexander II., a much 
milder man, who was sincerely anxious for the welfare of 
his people. He became the emancipator of the serfs, the 


154 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


promoter of reforms, and was in the end the victim of 
Nihilists. | 

«At the beginning of March, 1855, winter in the Crimea 
seemed to have departed,” says my staff-officer ; “ only a few 
cold days lingered in scattered order in its rear. The health 
of the troops was steadily improving. New batteries had 
been admirably constructed and were connected with others 
by long lines of trenches, and there were many new and 
efficient guns.” 

Prince Mentzikoff died at about the same time as his 
great master, whom he had so largely helped to bring into 
the war. 

In order to understand the future military operations of 
the siege it will be desirable, if we can, to get a good idea 
of the defences. I repeat that Sebastopol is not a walled 
city. It was defended by redoubts of great strength, the 
principal of which were the Redan and the Malakoff. 
_ These were called by the Russians the Fourth and Fifth 
Bastions. A little in front of the Malakoff was the Mam- 
elon, a low, round-topped hill. The English had _ pro- 
posed to occupy it, but the Russians got it first and crowned 
it with batteries. : 

On Easter Sunday, April 8, Sebastopol was bombarded 
furiously by the French and by the English, with a view to 
an assault, as was believed, by the army. But though many 
Russian guns were silenced and disabled, the bombardment 
produced very little effect. 

Up to this time life in Sebastopol had gone on much as 
usual. The bands played of an evening on the Parade, the 
shops were open, the city was not invested. There was free 
communication by the great high-road with St. Petersburg 
and Moscow. Letters came and went, and food and rein- 
forcements came in. But after May, 1855, things changed. 
There was food in plenty, and officers were arriving from 
St. Petersburg and departing, but the city was in ruins. The 
hospitals were filled and badly served, so that the sights and 
smells in them were sickening. ‘The guns in the redoubts 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 155 


were chiefly manned by sailors, the masts of whose ships 
(those ships in which they had taken such pride) were 
sticking out of the water at the entrance of the harbor. 
In each redoubt there were bomb-proofs with underground 
chambers hollowed out for the officer on duty, and also as 
sleeping-places for his subordinates. ‘These redoubts were 
reached from the city through trenches so deep in mud that 
the men generally preferred walking at all risks on the path 
above them. The Russians called their enemy “ He.” The 
rank and file fully believed themselves engaged in a Holy 
War, against “ Him” for their Greek Church and their 
beloved emperor. 

What we have learned to call Nihilism in Russia exists 
only among the educated or half-educated classes. It has 
no hold on the peasantry. The czar has been always con- 
sidered, — and, to a large extent, is considered still — their 
father, and their friend. 

By the middle of May the English, who had received new 
cannon which carried farther than the Russian guns, were 
doing terrible execution in Sebastopol. ‘“ ‘He’ is firing 
straight through everything,” said one Russian soldier to 
another. ‘His shells even go over us into the bay.” 
With all the horrors of war in the foreground, in the back- 
ground the bay had hitherto lain calm and in peace, with 
its forest of masts, the English and French fleets in the 
offing ; and in Sebastopol itself were the white batteries, the 
barracks, the aqueduct, the public buildings. 

Touching pictures of life in Sebastopol during the siege 
may be found in a little volume written by Count Lyof 
Tolstoi immediately after the time treated of, but trans- 
lated into English only a few years since, and not, I imagine, 
very widely known. The book is called simply ‘Sebas- 
topol,”’ and is the first work that brought Tolstoi into 
notice in Russia. 

I have said little as yet of the change of commanders. 
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Crimean War 
was its lack of generalship. The soldiers of the allied 


\ 


156 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


armies were brought face to face with heights, redoubts, 
divisions of the enemy, and told to assault them, to repulse 
them, or to cut their way through them, and they did so; 
but no English general showed generalship, though Lord 
Raglan had many other.noble qualities. No French general 
showed generalship. General Bosquet (afterwards dis- 
placed) seems to have been the ablest among them. Still 
less did any of the Russian generals distinguish themselves, 
(if we except their young general of engineers, General 
Todleben, who was a German). ‘The most distinguished 
looking general was General La Marmora, who with his 
five thousand Sardinian soldiers, arrived early in the spring 
to join the allied army. 

The Sardinians were not fighting from any hatred to the 
Russians. They were there to win for their little Piedmont 
a place among the nations of western Europe. ‘Their 
valor was to form a stepping-stone for regenerated Italy. 
They commanded general admiration, but their ranks were 
sorely thinned by the cholera. Among its victims was the 
beloved elder brother of their general. The Turks were 
made far less account of than the Sardinians. Even Omar 
Pasha, who came with his gallant little army from the 
Danube in this spring of 1855, was thrust into the back- 
ground. Lord Raglan could not fail to remember that 
Turks, in his first encounter with the Russians before Sebas- 
topol, had lost him six guns. 

But to return to the generals. Saint-Arnaud died in 
November, 1854. He was succeeded by General Canro- 
bert. Canrobert was not general enough for the place. 
The Emperor Napoleon III. had tried to get back some of 
the grand old African generals whom he had insulted and 
outraged in 1851 by imprisoning them at Mazas; but they 
one and all replied that they would not serve him against 
a foreign foe, though if ever he needed their swords to 
defend France he might count upon their willingness to 
draw them. 

Canrobert, after some months of experience, arrived at 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. r57 


the conclusion that the commander-in-chief of the allied 
armies should be one and indivisible. He returned to 
France in the spring of 1855, and expressed this opinion 
to his emperor. Lord Raglan therefore retained the 
supreme command; no new French commander-in-chief 
was appointed, but General Pelissier, the same who had 
distinguished himself in Africa, both by his fighting quali- 
ties and by smothering his enemies, was made general of 
the French forces. Canrobert had returned to Paris shortly 
before Queen Victoria’s visit to the French emperor in the 
spring of 1855 ; we read of him as sitting next to her at 
dinner, having just come, as he said, “from the trenches,” 
and telling her stories of her soldiers, whom he greatly 
admired, and of the vicissitudes of the war. | 

The Mamelon, as I have said, was a little round green 
hill, five hundred yards in advance of the Malakoff redoubt, 
with which it was connected by trenches. On June 7 an 
attack was made upon it by the French. ‘“ The Zouaves,”’ 
says an English officer, “went up like hounds.” In seven 
minutes and a half they were inside the works, but were 
driven out again. They attacked it a second time. Then 
the Russians spiked their guns and retired, as it were, by 
the back door. It was not until daybreak that the French 
could feel sure of their prize. The next day there was an 
armistice to bury the dead. Here is an account of it as 
told by Count Tolstoi. His account is very nearly the 
same as that by Mr. Russell, the English war correspondent, 
which, however, is not so picturesque as that by the Russian 
writer; — 


“White flags are flying on our fortifications, and on the 
French intrenchments. Inthe blossom-covered valley mutilated 
bodies clothed in blue or gray, with bare feet, lie in heaps, and 
men are carrying them off to place them in carts. The air 1s 
poisoned by the odor of the corpses. Crowds of people pour 
out of Sebastopol and out of the French camp, to witness this 
spectacle. The different sides meet each other on this ground 
with gifts and courtesies, and kindly curiosity. ‘ What a miser- 
able work we are carrying on,’ says a Russian to a French 


158 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


officer; and eager to carry on the conversation, he continues, 
‘It was hot last night, was it not?’— pointing to the corpses. 
‘Oh! monsieur, it is frightful. But what fine fellows your 
Russian soldiers are! It isa pleasure to fight such fellows as 
that.’ ‘It must be owned your fellows are up to the mark 
too,’ replies the Russian cavalry-man, witha salute. Yes! flags 
float over the bastions, and on the intrenchments, the brilliantly 
shining sun is setting in the blue waters which ripple and 
sparkle beneath its golden rays. Thousands of people as- 
semble, look at each other, chat, and laugh. People who are 
Christians, who profess to obey the great law of love, are look- 
ing at their own work, and do not think of falling on their 
knees to repent before Him who gave them life, and with life 
has implanted the dread of death, and the love of the good and 
beautiful. They do not embrace each other like brothers, and 
shed tears of joy and happiness. Well, we Russians must at 
least take consolation in the thought that we did not begin the 
war, and are only defending our country! The white flags are 
lowered; the engines of death and suffering thunder again. 
Once more a flood of innocent blood is shed, and groans and 
curses again rise up from earth to heaven.” 


The great attack on the Malakoff and the Redan, the 
two most important redoubts was to take place on June 18, 
the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. The English 
were to attack the Redan, the French the Malakoff. The 
French, having taken the Mamelon Vert, were much nearer 
to the Malakoff than the English to the Redan. 

The English attack was led on by Colonel Gwilt, a brave 
and gallant officer, but scaling ladders had not been pro- 
vided. The attack failed on the Redan; the French failed 
too at the Malakoff. 

The disappointment in the camp was bitter. All the 
English had been sure that a sudden attack would carry the 
Redan. It was evident that it had not been battered 
enough, or enough disabled. The only thing to be done 
was to batter it some more. 

But the failure of the attack on the 18th of June 
broke Lord Raglan down. He had been vehemently 
assailed in Parliament all winter, and harassed and _ hin- 


THE CRIMEAN WAR, 159 


dered in every way. It would seem as if he had had 
enough to do to take Sebastopol, but to this was added the 
necessity of keeping up relations of amity with the French, 
of combating imperative and impracticable ideas sent out 
by the emperor Napoleon (who at one time was vehe- 
mently urged by his wife to go out to the Crimea, and him- 
self command his army), and the necessity of parrying 
attacks at home, and of bearing the pressure put upon him 
by the home ministry. 

He was taken ill on the Tuesday after the 18th of June, 
and died on the Thursday following of cholera, but his 
death was really owing to an exhausted frame, incapable of 
resisting an attack of illness. His death caused sincere 
grief to the army. His body, with all military honors, was 
carried on board the “Caradoc,’”’ and the command de- 
volved upon his chief-of-staff, General James Simpson, a 
commonplace, meritorious, well-meaning officer. 

As the summer advanced sickness increased among the 
men, and the mortality among the generals, French, 
English, and Sardinian, was very great. Wet weather 
seemed to bring cholera; heat, dysentery. Miss Nightin- 
gale came to Balaclava and there reorganized the hospitals. 
In one day the surgeons made requisitions for six tons of 
hospital supplies. 

The next event was the small battle of the Tchernaya. 
The allies won the battle, and the Sardinians distinguished 
themselves. 

All July and August the cannonading and the sickness, 
and the work in the trenches went steadily on. One of 
the great torments of this time was the plague of flies. 
The hard-hearted Pharaoh and his people could not have 
been more beset by them. They did not, like other flies, 
go to rest at night, and the sick suffered terribly from this 
plague, while the well were all night distracted by it. 

Lord Palmerston was by this time prime minister of Eng- 
land, and he sent out a sanitary commission to report upon 
the state of the encampment. But it was “a far cry’ from 


160 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


sending a commission three thousand miles to report, and 
the means of getting the evils it reported remedied. How- 
ever, the improvement in everything had been great since 
the winter, and heat may more easily be borne than cold. 

When one thinks of the state of things in the Crimea it 
is sometimes hard to say who were the besiegers, which 
were the besieged. The allied armies, especially the Eng- 
lish, lay hemmed in between the fortifications of Sebas- 
topol and a Russian army. ‘This army held the heights of 
Inkerman and all the north side of Sebastopol or Sever- 
naya, with its great Star Fort. Severnaya was connected 
with the city by a bridge of boats. 

On Sept. 5, 1855, the allies again attacked the Redan 
and the Malakoff. With their superior cannon they had 
succeeded in destroying many of the guns in those re- 
doubts, and in shattering much of their masonry. All 
summer the French had been pushing their lines of trenches 
from the Mamelon nearer and nearer to the Malakoff, 
so that by Sept. 5 they were only two hundred yards 
from it. ‘The English had a very much longer distance to 
charge over in the open to reach the Redan, and that dis- 
tance was commanded by batteries placed in certain stone 
quarries, which were held by the Russians. For that rea- 
son, and because of the stony nature of the ground, it had 
been impossible to advance the English trenches nearer to 
the point of attack. 

We all know the result. The French captured the Mala- 
koff; the English did zo¢ take the Redan. They were pre- 
paring to renew the attack the next morning when they 
found that there was no enemy to oppose them. Sebas- 
topol, — that is, its southern portion — had been abandoned 
during the night. General Todleben did not choose to 
waste life in defending a place no longer tenable. He had 
stolen away across the bridge of boats. All the army of 
Russia was now concentrated at Severnaya. Never was 
anything more masterly. But Count Tolstoi, who was there, 
shall tell us about the attack on the Malakoff and the mid- 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. I6I 


night retreat, which surprised the Russian soldiers as much 
as it did the allies : — 


“Two Russian officers in the middle of Sept. 5 stood on Tele- 
graph Hill, a high spot within the Russian lines in the Northern 
quarter of Sebastopol. The sun gleamed down on the bay, the 
sea was covered with ships at anchor, the water rippled and 
danced merrily under the sun’s rays. A light breeze filled the 
sails of small boats plying in the harbor. There stood Sebas- 
topol seen from the heights, apparently little changed by all it 
had undergone during the siege, with its unfinished church, its 
monuments, its quay, its boulevard, which looked like a band of 
green passed over the hill, its elegant library building, its little 
basins in the harbor, its forest of masts, its picturesque aque- 
ducts, while over all floated clouds of bluish tint made by the 
powder-smoke, which from time to time-were lighted up by the 
red flame from the firing. On the horizon, where the smoke of 
a steamer traced a black line, white lines of cloud were rising, 
precursors of a wind-storm. Along the whole line of the forti- 
fications, but especially on the heights toward the left, spurted 
swift vivid flashes of light, though it was broad daylight, fol- 
lowed by plumes of white smoke, which assuming various forms, 
rose, extended, covered the sky with sombre, hazy tints. These 
jets of smoke came forth on all sides, — from the hills, from the 
hostile batteries of the allies, and from the city. The noises of 
the firing shook the air with a continuous roar. Toward noon 
these smoke-puffs became rarer and rarer, and the changes of 
color in the haze less frequent. ‘Do you notice that the Second 
Bastion is no longer replying?’ said the huzzar officer on horse- 
back to his comrade. ‘It must have been silenced. It is terri- 
ble!’ ‘Yes; and the Malakoff has slackened fire,’ the other 
answered. He was looking through his field glass. ‘ They are 
firing straight on the Kornikoff battery, and ¢/a¢ too is not reply- 
ing.’ ‘You will see,’ said the other, ‘I was right; toward noon 
they will cease firing. It is always so. Let us go down to 
breakfast.’ ‘Wait — hush!’ the other man replied, with agita- 
tion in his voice, still looking through his glass. There was a move- 
mentinthe trenches. ‘They are advancing in close column !’ he 
cried. ‘See there! —see! how they come out of the trenches!’ 
Both officers could in fact see with the naked eye black spots 
going down the hill into the ravine, and proceeding from the 
French batteries toward the Russian bastions. In the fore- 
ground, in front of the French batteries, black spots, very near 

II 


162 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


their own lines, could be seen by the Russian officers. Sud- 
denly from different parts of the Malakoff spurted white plumes 
of smoke, and vivid flashes, while a lively fusillade could be 
heard, like the patter of heavy rain on window panes. The 
French lines advanced toward the Malakoff wrapped in smoke, 
drawing nearer and nearer. The fusillade increased in vio- 
lence, the smoke belched out at shorter and at shorter intervals, 
extending rapidly along the line in a long light-iilac colored 
cloud. All noises mingled together in one continuous roar. 
‘It is an assault,’ said the officer, pale with emotion, as he 
handed his glass to his companion. Cossacks and officers on 
horseback were seen galloping along the road, preceding the 
commander-in-chief in his carriage. All faces expressed pain- 
ful emotion. ‘It is impossible they can take the Malakoff!’ 
cried the officer on horseback. ‘God in heaven! Look now. 
See the flag!’ cried the other, taking his eyes from the glass. 
‘The French flag,’ he exclaimed, choked with emotion, ‘is fly- 
ing from the Malakoff!’ ‘Impossible!’ exclaimed the other.” 


The attack had been a surprise to the soldiers in the 
Malakoff. ‘Those who had been all night in the trenches 
were resting in the stiflmg bomb-proofs of the redoubt, 
while the sailors worked the guns. 


“Toward eight o’clock in the evening,” continues Count 
Tolstoi, “all the soldiers and all the inhabitants of Sebastopol 
were crossing the harbor, some by the bridge of boats, and 
some in steamers. The firing had ceased everywhere. Stars 
sparkled in the sky as they had done the night before, but a 
strong wind was blowing and the bay was rough. From some 
of the redoubts flames flashed up close to the earth, preceding 
explosions that shook the ground, and sent stones and black 
objects of strange shapes into the air. Something near the 
docks was on fire, and a red flame was reflected on the water. 
The bridge of boats, covered with people, was lighted by fires 
from the Nicholas battery. A great sheet of flame seemed to 
spread over the water; it lighted up the under side of a cloud 
of smoke which hovered over it. As on the preceding evening, 
the lights of the hostile fleet sparkled far out to sea, calm and 
defiant. ‘See! they have burned our barracks!’ cries a soldier, 
sighing. ‘How many of our people are dead, — and dead to 
no purpose, for the French have got possession!’ ‘Do you 
think they will long enjoy it? Do you think they will lead an 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 163 


easy life there?’ cries another soldier. * Wait a bit; we will take 
all our redoubts back again. We may lose more men, but, as 
sure as God is holy, if the emperor orders it, we will get back 
everything. Do you think things have been left as they were 
in Sebastopol? They will find nothing but naked walls. The 
fortifications are blown up. //e has planted his flag on the 
Malakoff, it is true, but he won’t dare to go into the city. Give 
us time ! Give us time!’ Along the whole line of the defences of 
Sebastopol, where for nearly twelve months ardent and energetic 
life had been active, there was not left one single living soul. 
The walls, the works, the timbers were all falling with a din. 
Torn by a recent explosion, crushed bodies of French and 
Russians lay under broken beams; heavy cannon, overturned 
into the moat by terrible force, lay half-buried in the earth, 
forever dumb. Bombs, balls, splinters of beams lay every- 
where. The bomb-proofs were rent open, and corpses, in blue 
or gray overcoats, were lighted up by the red explosions that 
every instant shot into the air. The army of Sebastopol, like a 
sea whose liquid mass, agitated and uneasy, spreads and over- 
flows its banks after some great commotion, moved slowly in 
the midnight into the impenetrable gloom, undulating over the 
bridge that crossed the bay, proceeding toward Severnaya, 
leaving behind the places where so many brave men had fallen 
during eleven months’ defence against an enemy twice as strong 
as the garrison of the besieged city, 1 in obedience to an order, 
received that very day, to retire without more fighting. The 
first impression made by this order weighed heavily upon the 
Russians’ hearts; then fear of pursuit became their dominant 
feeling. The soldiers, accustomed for so many months to fight 
in the strongholds they were abandoning, felt themselves with- 
out shelter as they quitted them. Uneasily they crowded 
together in masses at the entrance to the bridge, which was 
lifted up and down by violent gusts of wind. Though the 
attention of each man was distracted by a thousand details, 
the impulse of self-preservation was now strongest everywhere, 
the desire to fly as soon as possible from that fatal spot. 
Arrived at the end of the bridge each soldier, with very few 
exceptions, removed his hat and crossed himself. But besides 
this feeling was another, deeper, more poignant, a feeling akin 
to repentance, to shame, to hatred; for it was with inexpressible 


1 Count Tolstoi makes no account of the Army of the Crimea 
which hemmed in the besiegers on the land side, 


164. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


bitterness of heart that each man sighed, and uttered threats 
against the enemy, and as he reached the north side cast a last 
look upon abandoned Sebastopol.” 


All this happened on the night of September 5, 1855, and 
with the abandonment of Sebastopol the war may be said 
to have been over. It had been the intention of the Rus- 
sians to blow up the whole city, but happily the destruction 
was less than they had planned. 

There was no armistice until February 28, when a month’s 
truce, while plenipotentiaries deliberated on terms of peace, 
was given. ‘The allied armies, under Generals Pelissier and 
Simpson, went again into winter quarters. They did not 
dare to encamp in Sebastopol, for it was all in ruins, and 
for many a day after it was deserted it was liable to terrible 
explosions. The moment the last soldier or inhabitant had 
crossed the bridge of boats to Severnaya the boats had 
been disconnected and floated away. About sixty drunken 
soldiers were made prisoners in Sebastopol, and a consider- 
able number of sick and wounded were in the hospitals in 
a dreadful condition. Of course, skirmishing went on all 
winter, and the Russians in their turn from the Star Fort 
bombarded Sebastopol, but little was done except by a 
naval expedition sent to capture the forts that guarded the 
Isthmus of Perekop, which unites the Crimea with southern 
Russia. There was also the brilliant episode of the defence 
of Karsin Asia Minor, where the Turkish garrison was com- 
manded by a young English officer, Captain Williams. 

Peace at last was signed in Paris. 

The last Englishman killed in Sebastopol perished while 
trying to escape after firing a mine that was to bring down 
an unsafe building ; the last Frenchman was killed in a duel 
with a brother officer. ; 

The last corps of English embarked at Balaclava July 12, 
1856; the last Frenchmen a few days later. The armies 
had accumulated the incredible number of twenty-eight 
thousand camp followers, for whose transportation their 
governments had also to provide. 


THE CRIMEAN WAR. 165 


Queen Victoria reviewed and decorated her returned 
soldiers. It was a campaign of glory to soldiers, not to 
generals, and few of the latter received any honors. The 
most brilliant officer, I should say, had been Sir Colin 
Campbell, afterward covered with glory at Lucknow; 
and Chinese Gordon was there, a very efficient officer but 
as yet unknown to history. General Pelissier was made 
marshal of France, and Duke of Malakoff, and was 
subsequently appointed ambassador to England by his 
emperor. 

It is said that when England goes into a war and comes 
out of it victorious her first act is to surrender to somebody 
else all that she had fought for; and very small were her 
gains in the Crimean War, in comparison to her losses and 
expenses. Russia was compelled to demolish her fortresses 
on the Black Sea, to open that sea to the trade of Western 
Europe, to agree that no war vessels should pass the Dar- 
danelles or Bosphorus; and Turkey made promises (on 
paper) that Christians should be admitted to equal rights 
with Mussulmans in her European dominions. But the 
signature of a sultan or his representative is powerless 
against the set of public opinion, the ancient traditions of 
a haughty race, and the authority of the Koran. The 
autonomy of Wallachia and Moldavia was confirmed, and 
they were made into a principality, with Prince Charles of 
Hohenzollern as their ruler. 

The Sardinians gained the recognition and the position 
they had fought for. The French emperor gained the 
English alliance, and his complete admission into the circle 
of European royalties, to which it may be said Queen Vic- 
toria introduced him as her good friend and ally. But 
- England — what had she? 

Russia was weakened, and the dangerous classes have 
profited by that weakness to make her the festering sore 
upon the body politic of Europe. She was left isolated and 
angry, and ever since has been making such advances in 
Asia that when she is ready sorne day she may harass 


166 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


England in her Indian possessions. As to France, she 
looks now-a-days to Russia as her ally, and should the 
often predicted war with Germany break out, it will be 
France and Russia, against that very Austria and Prussia 
who refused to take sides in the Crimean War. 


CHAPTER VIII. 
THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 


qe Emperor Nicholas, notwithstanding his stern char- 

acter and all the hard names it was the fashion in 
England to call him, was a true lover of his country. He 
said on his deathbed to Alexander, his son and heir: “Save 
your country. All my care, all my efforts have been directed 
to the good of Russia. I desired to take upon myself all 
the dangers, all the difficulties, so that I might leave you 
an empire tranquil, well-organized, and happy.  Provi- 
dence has decided otherwise, for at what a time, and under 
what circumstances, am I dying! You will find your way 
difficult !” 

He had indeed left to his country a heritage of woe. He 
had tried to gather the fruit he coveted, and it proved 
beyond his reach; he had miscalculated obstacles ; he had 
relied on a military organization that had proved imperfect, 
and he had met a fall almost as disastrous for Russia as 
Sedan was afterwards for France. His empire, exhausted 
by the war, was morally as well as materially a wreck; his 
treasury was empty; his navy self-destroyed ; hostile war- 
vessels were cruising in his waters. An hour of great dark- 
ness had fallen on the empire when Alexander II. mounted 
the Russian throne. 

As soon as possible Alexander, with the prudence shown 
afterwards by M. Thiers, made peace with the invaders. 
Nor were the terms very hard. England’s demands on a 
brave foe are never excessive. The Emperor Napoleon III. 
was weary of the war, which had lasted too long to please 


168 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


one whose policy was based upon surprises ; and the moment 
peace was made, the new Russian emperor devoted himself 
to the task of consolidating and regenerating his empire. 
It is said that his desire to reform had been stimulated by his 
perusal of the early novels of Tourguenieff. 

Russia was at that time “ filled with antiquated ideas and 
absurd traditions, conflicting prejudices, and opposing in- 
terests. She had millions of serfs and but few schools, 
miserable high-roads, and only six hundred miles of rail- 
road.” 

At home and abroad everything was in ruins; not only 
the military system, but the administrative system of the 
State had given way under the strain. 

The Emperor Alexander II. was born in 1818, one year 
before Queen: Victona., His» father, the Grand” Duke 
Nicholas, shortly before his birth had been in England, 
and had charmed the Princess Charlotte by his good looks 
and his good manners when he visited her at Claremont. 

At the time of Alexander’s birth neither his father nor 
himself had any prospect of ascending the Russian throne. 
Alexander I. had had no children, but his next heir was 
his brother Constantine, whose renunciation of hereditary 
royalty that he might marry a Polish wife no one could have 
anticipated. 

Alexander II. far more resembled his uncle Alexander 
“‘the Blessed’ than the stern: autocrat his father. It is 
said that his mild disposition was a great disappointment 
and annoyance to the Emperor Nicholas, and that it cost 
him many a whipping from the imperial hand. His next 
brother, Constantine, was made of sterner stuff, and ven- 
tured, when they were grown to manhood, to flout and to 
annoy his elder brother. 

There is an anecdote told in the books of the time of how 
the Emperor Nicholas was roused one day from his writing- 
table by a noise in the nursery, in the midst of which he 
»could distinguish the words “Oh, don’t!’ and “ Have 
mercy !’’ He found his heir the czarevitch on his back, and 


EMPREROKVALEXANDE RTT. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS ~ o 
URBANA mes | 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 169 


his brother Constantine tightening a string around his throat, 
while the other four children stood around. On inquiring 
the meaning of this scene, he was told that they were play- 
ing at the murder of their grandfather the Emperor Paul. 
Nicholas at once punished the younger ones for any such 
amusement, and the czarevitch for having shrieked for 
mercy, which he said was unbecoming in a future czar. 

Alexander, for thirty-seven years of his life, was treated 
as of no political importance. He was put into the army 
when a mere babe, and at ten years of age was made Hett- 
man of the Cossacks. From that time his education was 
entrusted to the strictest disciplinarians that could be found 
among the officers of the guards. Only once did he obtain 
a tutor to whom he could attach himself, and 4e was soon 
removed for “liberalism.’’ His other instructors treated 
him with such severity that he cherished a dread and aver- 
sion for them, even after he had grown to manhood and 
was married. 

His marriage took place when he was twenty-three. His 
bride was the princess Marie of Darmstadt, aunt to the 
Prince Louis, who was husband of the Princess Alice of 
England. Princess Marie was a good woman, who bore 
her husband several children, but after the death of her 
eldest son the Grand Duke Nicholas she fell into such bad 
health that she found it impossible to live or breathe in 
St. Petersburg. 

Till Alexander was thirty years old he was absolutely 
nothing but his stern father’s aide-de-camp. His duty was 
to follow him wherever he went, at home, abroad, in the 
night-time to a fire, in the daytime to a review. When 
the Grand Duke Michael died (the Emperor Nicholas’s 
youngest brother, who was very much of a savage) the 
czarevitch succeeded to some of his posts, among others 
to the superintendence of the military colleges. In this 
position he soon made himself greatly beloved by the boys, 
though old men of his father’s school shook their heads at 
every relaxation of the severity of military discipline. 


I17O RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


The love that Alexander acquired in those days by his 
acts of consideration and kindness stood him in good stead 
when engaged in his reforms; for, though the old military 
officers were against him, he had with him the younger 
men. 

A writer in the “ British Quarterly Review,” speaking of 
Alexander a few years before his death, says : — 


“The slightest, almost imperceptible breach of regulation in 
military uniform often lea under Nicholas to the cashiering of a 
meritorious officer, while almost the first thing Alexander did 
on ascending the throne was to allow smoking, and to make the 
military dress as comfortable and as easy as possible. Nicholas 
used to interfere in the smallest details connected with every- 
body in his dominions; an officer or official wishing to marry 
was bound to write to his emperor. ‘The smallest sentence of 
a magistrate had to be submitted for his approval, and every 
trifling item of local news in St. Petersburg was each day 
reported to him. Alexander put an end to almost all these 
absurdities as soon as the necessary reverence to the memory 
of his father would permit. When he had made up his mind to 
introduce a reform of any kind he summoned a committee of 
old and new men to consider it. If they could not agree he 
would send them an order to be quicker, or would fix a date by 
which time the work was to be done. But he expected it would 
be finished in a way to follow out his own ideas. There were 
times when he could take a sterner attitude. He had a way of 
letting his ideas (which were those of modern progress) Russify 
themselves, if we may coin a word; and in the beginning of his 
reign all young Russia was wildly enthusiastic and hopeful as 
to the changes he inaugurated. In the end many were disap- 
pointed, when the great reforms failed to produce such imme- 
diate results as they had hoped.” 


Nevertheless, during the twenty-seven years of his reign a 
marvellous amount of reform was set on foot, though most 
of it, thus far, has apparently failed to accomplish its desired 
end. 

“‘ Alexander was a despot, he could not be otherwise, but 
he was a kind-hearted, liberal-minded man. There was a 
great contrast between him and the stern, stiff, sergeant- 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 171 


major-like bearing of his father. Every inch of him 
bespoke the well-bred nobleman, very rich, very good- 
tempered, affectionate to his children, a man fond of a 
good dinner, of shooting, of hunting, and of making every- 
body comfortable, himself included.” 

But to return to the first days of his reign, and_ his 
earliest reforms. ‘No Russian,” says a Russian writer in 
1881, ‘asserts that the work of reform in Russia is com- 
plete. Of course there is still very much to be done. One 
reason for which we deplore Nihilist outrages is because 
they postpone reforms.” 

As soon as peace had been declared, and the war in the 
Crimea was brought to a close, the emperor issued a mani- 
festo to his people, one sentence in which contained the 
keynote to his policy. He hoped, he said, that “by the 
combined efforts of the government and the people, the 
public adminstration would be improved, and that justice 
and mercy would reign in the courts of law.” 

It was the first time in Russian history that the people 
had been, even verbally, associated with the government. 

A year later, on a visit to Moscow (the ancient capital 
of the empire), in an address to the Marshals of the 
Nobility, a sort of representative body chosen by the nobles 
themselves, he spoke first on the subject of serfage. ‘If 
serfdom is doomed,” he said, “it is better that the neces- 
sary reform should come from above rather than from 
below.” He therefore urged them freely to discuss the 
question with their brother nobles. “Every one seemed 
pleased, and there was no end,” says a Russian, ‘of ani- 
mated discussions and of brilliant plans.” 

In 1861 the Emancipation Act was completed, and re- 
ceived the emperor’s signature. It gave liberty to twenty- 
three millions of serfs belonging to the nobles, in addition 
to thirty millions set at liberty on lands of the crown. 

Great was the rejoicing throughout Russia, especially 
among the more enlightened classes. ‘They were proud of 
their country, proud of their emperor, proud of their own 
spirit of self-sacrifice. 


172 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


The Civil War in the United States began in April, 1861 ; 
the Emancipation Proclamation in Russia preceded it by 
about three weeks. 

«‘ Including crown peasants, nearly half the population of 
Russia were serfs; yet, without a sword being unsheathed, 
the great work was accomplished ; by the simple mandate 
of the emperor serfdom ceased to exist within the limits of 
the empire; 

This was not done without expense to the government. 
The cost has been estimated at five hundred million dollars. 
This is one reason of the present poverty of the State Treasury. 
I am assuredly no apologist for the horrible condition of 
Russian prisons, as reported by Mr. Kennan, but it is only 
fair to remember that orders for new prisons, and for better 
arrangements for exiles travelling to Siberia, have long ago 
been given, and would have been executed but for want of 
funds. 

To emancipate the peasants would have done them little 
good had they been left without resources. We remember 
the day when it was said that every negro looked to the 


Federal government for ‘(ten acres and a mule.” ‘This 
dream was in some measure realized by the Russian 
peasantry. ; 


The land system of that country is very singular; and as 
we cannot understand Russian emancipation nor even 
Russian history without knowing something about it, I 
attempt an explanation. 

Russian government is official, and as such centralized. 
It is communistic, and as such exactly the reverse. As 
official it is founded on German precedents; in the latter 
case, on old Slavonic customs and ideas. 

Throughout the East of Europe the patriarchal idea pre- 
vails. ‘The head of the family is all-powerful over his own 
household. The same idea created the commune. Each 
village or commune has its government, — its Mir. The 
Mir is composed solely of peasants; no nobleman or 
gentleman is admitted. Its headman is called a Volost. 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 173 


The Mir holds meetings (much like vestry meetings) when- 
ever it thinks proper, and the head of every family can vote 
and speak in them. 

To each village has been allotted a certain quantity of 
land for the use of the former serfs, its inhabitants. The 
official tax-collector for the government looks to the Verlost 
of each Mir for the amount of taxes due by the commune 
to the State. The Mir distributes the communal land 
among the peasants, and may redistribute it at its own 
pleasure. It also pays an annual sum to the old proprietor, 
intended to purchase the land on the instalment principle. 
The Mir supplies the quota of conscripts to be furnished 
by its village to the army. It designates the time when 
ploughing, planting, and hay harvest may begin. It settles 
disputes, and in small matters administers justice in the 
village. It has power to send any unsatisfactory villager to 
Siberia. 

It is easy to see that these powers may become very 
burdensome to all parties. The Mir mwus¢ collect the taxes, 
whatever may be the consequences to the community, and 
it is not easy to get seventeen dollars a year (which is the 
amount of the government tax) out of every peasant land- 
holder. Moreover if the headman should lose, squander, 
or embezzle the money he collects, the peasants, when the 
official tax-gatherer comes round, may have to pay it over 
again. If there should be a deficit, any peasant’s horse or 
cow may be seized to make it good. 

Again, every married man, or widow, in the commune 
must hold land. If he or she did not the taxes would fall 
‘more heavily upon the others. If any one wants to leave 
his village he must make arrangements for paying his share 
of the taxes in some way satisfactory to the Mir. If his 
payments fail he will be summoned home by the village 
authorities, and if he refuses to obey, he will be sent home 
by the government police. Sometimes this is done simply 
to black-mail a man who prospers in the cities. 

Courts for the trial of persons guilty of minor offences 


174. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


can be held by the Mir; but it is said that as a rule deci- 
sions can be purchased by a treat of strong liquor. 

Over the commune are larger provincial assemblies com- 
posed of both peasants and nobles. They began by being 
dignified and well-conducted ; but they had so little power 
that they fell into disrepute, and at last into disuse. 

No man likes to hold office in the Mir. It involves too 
much annoyance, unpopularity, and responsibility. The 
better class of peasants shirk office altogether. The com- 
munal offices, therefore, fall to the worthless who are willing 
to accept them. 

It will thus be seen that the land held by the emancipated 
peasant is not an absolute possession. After he has im- 
proved and manured his holding, he is liable, on a re-dis- 
tribution of the land, to have it fall to somebody else, while 
he may get for his next allotment a barren waste, several 
miles from his village. Besides this, family expenses have 
increased under the new system. In serf-times large fam- 
ilies of several generations dwelt together ; now, as every 
man must hold land, he commonly feels himself compelled 
to live within reasonable reach of it. 

Horses are indispensable to a cultivator, especially when 
the proprietor may be under the necessity of going a great 
distance to his daily labor. Ifa peasant’s horse dies, or is 
stolen, or misfortune or unthrift break in on his resources, 
he was formerly compelled to go to the Jew money-lender 
(we have as yet no means of knowing to whom he resorts 
now). From him he could obtain money to buy another 
horse, or to pay his taxes. The security was so uncertain 
that the usurer demanded ruinous interest, sometimes thirty 
per cent; and this in a great measure laid the foundation 
of the bitter hatred to the Jewish race felt by peasants in 
Russia. : 

Russia, with reference to the nature of its soil, is divided 
into three districts: the forest, or northern part; the black 
soil; and the steppes. 

In the black-soil zone, which is fertile, populated, and 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 175 


provided with roads, emancipation seemed, for twenty years 
after it was granted, to work well; in the other two, badly. 
The causes for this may be found in Mr. Wallace’s book on 
Russia published in 1879; but it is well to know something 
about conditions of peasant life so different from ours, when 
we read the books of Tolstoi, Tourgenieff, Gogol, and Henri 
Gréville. 

In reading Mr. Wallace’s account of the proprietor’s 
views upon emancipation, and indeed in reading Russian 
stories that describe the country life of a Russian pro- 
prietor, one is reminded of what was taking place almost 
simultaneously on plantations in our own country, while the 
transition from the Old South to the New South was in 
progress. Almost the same difficulties seem to have beset 
the Russian proprietor and the Southern planter. But wealth 
has poured into our Southern States, and a large and in- 
dustrious population ; while no such good fortune befel the 
Russian landowner. The Southern planter supplied him- 
self, as soon as his means would permit, with agricultural 
machinery, while in Russia there seems to have been little 
attempt to pursue new agricultural methods, and a feeling, 
too often experienced in our kitchens, that “ modern inven- 
tions ’’ are wasted upon those who have not the persever- 
ance or the ability to understand them. 

Again, when we compare Russian with Southern life, — 
that is, with life as it existed on the farms of old Virginia, 
— we are struck by three radical differences: First, the 
brutality of Russian manners toward inferiors, in contrast 
with the courtesy and kindness always enjoined on children 
in good families.in the Southern States, in their intercourse 
with household servants, whom it was never considered 
good taste to call “slaves.’”’ Secondly, we are struck by 
the drinking and gambling of Russian masters, and the 
brutal beastly drunkenness that prevailed (and prevails still) 
among the laboring class, whether peasants or serfs. Our 
Southern gentlemen drank more toddy and more juleps than 
were good for them, and once in a while there was an 


176 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT# CENTURY. 


incorrigibly drunken negro, but drunkenness was the excep- 
tion, not the rule, as it appears to be in Russia. Lastly, in 
every Russian book one is struck with the hopelessness of 
life in Russia. It is as if Pandora had shaken out.her woes 
upon the land, but forgot to add the gift that was hidden 
at the bottom. ‘The negro, constitutionally light-hearted, 
looked forward to his Sundays and his holidays, to his 
Whitsuntide and Christmas, to say nothing of the frolics 
after night-fall in the quarter. The same spirit of looking 
forward to “a good time coming” pervades his songs and 
hymns. ‘The Russian evidently takes no hopefulness from 
his religion, — it teaches him endurance; his enjoyment is 
solely in sleep and in vodka. He appears too lost to hope 
to be capable of aspiration. 
Mr. Wallace, writing in 1875, says: — 


“The great majority of educated Russians are at present suf- 
fering from the effect of shattered illusions. During the time 
of the emancipation they indulged in the most immoderate ex- 
pectations. They believed, with an ardor of which only neo- 
phytes are capable, that Russia had discovered a new path of 
progress ; that in securing to the peasants the land they actually 
enjoyed, and in developing the communal institutions in the 
direction of self-government, Russia laid, so they argued, a firm 
basis for her future prosperity. Grave doubts might be enter- 
tained as to the future fate of the landed proprietors; but there 
could be none, it was imagined, as to the future of the peasants. 
They would at once change ‘from head to foot.’ Their new 
position would work in them wonders. As soon as they felt 
themselves free they would strive to better their condition. 
Agriculture would be improved, the numbers of cattle would be 
increased, the old vices that had been created and fostered by 
serfage would disappear, and new institutions would develop a 
healthy local life. In a word, it was expected that the eman- 
cipation would produce instantaneously a complete transforma- 
tion in the life and character of the rural population, and that 
the peasant would become at once a sober, industrious, moral 
agriculturist. These expectations were not realized. One year 
passed, five years passed, ten years passed, twenty years have 
passed, —and the expected transformation has not taken place. 
On the contrary, there have appeared certain very ugly phe- 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND AIS REFORMS. 177 


nomena which were not in the programme. The peasants, it is 
said, began to drink more and to work less, and the public life 
which the communal institutions have produced has not been of 
a desirable kind. The natural consequence of this is that those 
who had indulged in exaggerated expectations sank into a state 
of inordinate despondency, and imagined that things were much 
worse than they are. This despondency exists still, and tinges 
strongly the commonly received opinions regarding the present 
condition of the peasantry.” 


Mr. Wallace’s own idea appeared to be that men must 
have patience with the experiment; that the new institu- 
tions forced on the people from above were not those they 
had grown up to, and that it might take a generation or more 
to discover how far the new order of things works for good 
or for evil. 

The proprietors speedily complained bitterly of the 
difficulty of making the peasants keep their contracts. At 
the moment of harvest, or whenever their services were 
most needed, they were apt to go off in a body to work 
elsewhere, or to keep saints’ days, or to attend fairs, or 
were incapable of work because of a night’s drunkenness. 
As I said, love of drink is the Russian’s worst enemy. 
Some one has spoken of Russia as a land in which there: 
are but two classes, —those who sell drink, and those who. 
consume it. 

By a system too complicated to explain here, it was. 
arranged that a peasant might acquire his land after a num- 
ber of years. But few appear to have availed themselves. 
of the chance of doing so. How far a peasant’s acquisition 
of his own land would alter his relations to the Mir, I do. 
not know. 

After the Emancipation many proprietors wholly deserted’ 
their country houses, and went to live in cities; but the: 
‘greater part of them soon resumed their former life ; and in: 
Russia, as elsewhere, the relations between employer and: 
employed depend largely on the character and behavior of 
the former. 

12 


178 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


According to theory the «self-government of rural Russia 
consists : — 

First: of the village meetings under the Volost. 

Secondly: of an assembly of representatives chosen in 
these village meetings; this forms the Mir. 

Thirdly: of a large district assembly where nobles and 
peasants sit together; and 

Fourthly : of a sort of financial committee which presides 
over all. 

The Zemstvo or District Assembly was supposed to attend 
to hospitals, schools, asylums, roads, bridges, etc. 

So far the plan of government, in Russian village com- 
munities is Slavonic; but over all stands the bureaucratic 
system, with its agents, the police, imported from western 
Europe. The emperor is at its head, supported by a per- 
fect army of officials, besides military officers who abound, 
and everywhere seem to have a species of authority. Russia 
is said to possess eight thousand generals. 

I have already said that as the possession of a share of 
land entails its proportionate share of taxes, the peasants 
are often by no means willing to be burdened by a large 
communal allotment; and Mr. Wallace in an article on 
Russian village communities in “ Macmillan’s Magazine,” 
gives a scene as enacted at one of the village assemblies, 
“‘whose meetings are held generally on Sundays after ser- 
vice, in front of the church or before the séarosta’s house 
(or volost’s house), or in some convenient place where 
there is plenty of room and but little mud”: — 

““¢Come now, Ivan,’ says an elderly peasant, who has evi- 
dently an air of authority, to one of the bystanders, ‘ you are a 
sturdy fellow, and you have a son there, a fine youth, who can 
do the work of two; you must take at least three shares.’ 

**No, I cannot,’ remonstrates Ivan. ‘By God, I cannot. 
My son — praise be to God! —is strong and healthy; but I am 
no longer what I was, and my old woman is quite without force, 


fit for nothing but to put the cabbage-soup into the oven. By 
God! I cannot.’ 


“If the old woman is weak, your daughter-in-law is strong, — 
stronger than a little horse !’ 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 179 


“A giggle in the outskirts of the crowd shows that the young 
woman referred to is among the spectators. 

“*Tn truth it is not in my power,’ pleads Ivan, 

“«There is nothing to be said,’ replies the old man, in an 
authoritative tone. ‘Somebody must take the remaining soz/s 
(shares). You must take three shares.’ 

“Lay on him three shares and a half!’ shouts a voice from 
the crowd. 

“This proposal evokes a confused murmur of ‘ayes’ and 
‘noes, till the noes gain a decided majority, and the ayes are 
silenced. A general shout of ‘Three! Three!’ decides the 
matter. 

“It is the will of the mr,’ remarks Ivan, scratching the 
back of his head, and iooking down with a look of mingled 
disappointment and resignation. 

“* And now, Prascovia, how such are you to have?’ asks 
the old man, addressing a woman standing by with a baby in 
her arms. 

* As the mr orders, so be it,’ replies Prascovia, turning down 
her eyes. 

*“*Very well. You ought to have a share and a half.’ 

“*What do you say, little father?’ cries the woman, throw- 
ing off suddenly her air of subservient obedience. ‘Do you 
hear that, ye orthodox? They want to lay on me a soul and a 
half! Was such a thing ever heard of? Since Saint Peter’s 
day my husband has been bedridden — bewitched it seems, for 
nothing does him good. He cannot put a foot to the ground. 
All the same as if he were dead; only he eats bread.’ 

“* You talk nonsense,’ says a neighbor; ‘he was at the gin- 
shop last week.’ 

*¢* And you,’ retorts Prascovia, wandering from the subject in 
hand, ‘ what did you do last parish féte? Was it not you who 
got drunk and beat your wife till she roused the whole village 
with her shrieking? And no further gone than last Sunday — 
pfu!’ 

“¢ Listen,’ says the old man, sternly cutting short the torrent 
of invective. ‘You must take at least a share and a quarter. 
lf you cannot manage it yourself, you can get some one to help 
you.” 

“* How can that be? Where am I to get money to pay a 
laborer?’ asks the woman, with much wailing and a flood of 
tears. ‘Have pity, ye orthodox, on the poor orphans. God will 
reward you;’ and so on and so on.” 


180 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Thus it will be seen that the possession of land under the 
commune is not an unmixed boon to the peasant proprietor. 
He is tied to his allotment hand and foot. Formerly he 
was serf to a proprietor; now he is surf to the commune. 
How he can extricate himself from his obligations in days 
of pestilence and famine —who can say? 

It is hardly too much to add that corruption reigns every- 
where, and with corruption comes of course injustice. The 
peasant is untrustworthy in matters of contract, and in his 
relations with others looks to his own interest alone; the 
merchants in the cities think lightly of fraud; and the 
venality and faithlessness of Russian officials is the stock 
subject in books of travel and in their own novels. 

Justice made great strides in the law courts under 
Alexander II. ‘Trial by jury in open court was allowed ; 
but the country juries are composed of peasants, who, 
like Judge Lynch formerly in our far western States, are 
severe upon horse-stealing, but lenient to other kinds of 
crime. 

The schools, so long as the reform movement lasted, 
made great progress, but that progress had begun before 
Emancipation ; for in the years between 1860 and 1870 the 
number of recruits who could read had increased five-fold. 
But the teachers were very poor in the provinces, being for 
the most part young foreigners with advanced and crude 
ideas, while in the universities distinguished professors were 
distrusted by the government, for fear they should prove 
“ Liberals.” 

By degrees the mineral wealth of Russia (enormous, 
especially in Siberia) was becoming turned to profit in 
Alexander’s reign. Great coal-beds and oil-wells were 
beginning to be worked, and railroads and telegraph wires 
were stretched over the land. 

Do we realize that the emperor of Russia rules over one 
seventh of the earth, and over more than ninety millions of 
subjects ; or that Russia is forty times as big as France, if 
we include her Asiatic possessions ? 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 181 


Among Alexander’s reforms was the abolition of the 
knout, and of corporal punishment in the army and navy. 

I fear I may have been wearisome with these details, but 
in general we only think of Russia in connection with her 
projects in India, her designs on Constantinople, and her 
exiles in Siberia. We overlook the marvellous changes tak- 
ing place, notwithstanding the obstinate conservatism of 
her lower classes, although attention has been called to 
them in the novels of Tolstoi. 

One of the first events of Alexander’s reign was a rising 
in Poland in 1863. ‘That unhappy land, which has neither 
a middle class nor a frontier, which finds sympathy every- 
where but no allies, made another attempt at insurrection, 
failed utterly, and the rebellion was stamped out ruth- 
lessly, even by Alexander, who is said always to have cher- 
ished a personal antipathy to the Poles. I need not tell 
the particulars of this sad rising, which, taking place when 
all our thoughts, and the attention of all Europe, were con- 
centrated on our Civil War, is very little known to us. The 
Polish peasants were in general not unfavorable to Russia. 
The Polish patriots were among the land-owning country 
nobility, and the educated professional class. These were 
divided into two parties, — Extreme Radicals and Conser- 
vative Patriots. They had no leader of ability, no effi- 
cient organization, either political or military. They had 
built hopes upon assistance from France, but the Emperor 
Napoleon III. had the affairs of Italy and Mexico upon his 
hands at the moment, and, in spite of the strong sympathy 
for the cause of Poland freely expressed by the Empress 
Eugénie, he was not disposed to engage in another enter- 
prise of intervention. The rising was a mere sacrifice of 
generous lives. ‘There is an interesting paper on the sub- 
ject in Laurence Oliphant’s delightful book, ‘ Gleanings 
in a Life of Adventure, or Moss from a Rolling Stone.” It 
is said that the emperor in his dealings with Poland desired 
to show Europe, as well as his own subjects, that he too, on 
occasion, could be stern. 


182 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


A Frenchman writing of Alexander II. says: “He was 
tall, though he had not the majestic height of his father, the 
Emperor Nicholas. He was well made, more so than his 
father, whose legs were too thin for his immense “rso. His 
blue eyes were tender and soft. His smile was charming ; 
his hair short and fair; his moustache long and thick, as 
were also his whiskers. His voice was flexible and very 
figic as 

Such was Alexander when he ascended the imperial 
throne at the age of thirty-seven. He wanted to make 
every one about him happy, and his domestic life, until 
broken up by his son’s death and his wife’s ill-health, was 
extremely happy. The young czarevitch, whose name was 
Nicholas, died in 1865 ; and from the sorrow of his death 
his father and mother never recovered. He expired at 
Nice, where his mother was then staying. Some time 
before he had been injured in a wrestling bout, some say 
with his cousin, Prince Nicholas of Leuchtenburg ; some 
say with Alexander, his athletic brother. At any rate no 
injury of any consequence was apprehended at the time, 
and he was betrothed to the beautiful and amiable Princess 
Dagmar of Denmark, sister of Alexandra, Princess of Wales. 
When alarming symptoms showed themselves his father 
hurried across Europe without stopping, to reach the death- 
bed of his boy, one of whose last entreaties was that the 
czarevitch who would succeed him, his brother Alexander, 
should take to wife the Danish princess who was shortly to 
have become his bride. He had been brought up with the 
greatest care that he might be qualified for his frofesszon, 
as king Victor Emmanuel used to call kingship. 

Alexander II. felt his son’s death the more severely 
because he considered him in every way qualified to make 
a noble and enlightened ruler, and to carry out his plans. 
The intellect of his next son, Alexander, he by no means 
valued so highly, and it is said that had it been possible he 
would have made his third son, the Grand Duke Vladimir, 
his heir. Alexander was, however, at once put under mili- 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND AILS REFORMS. 183 


tary training, and eighteen months after his brother’s death 
was married to the Princess Dagmar, who, on being bap- 
tized into the Greek church took the name of Maria 
Feodorovna. 

Marie of Darmstadt, the wife of Alexander II. was gen- 
tle, amiable, and cultivated, but she was at first not dis- 
posed to Russianize herself. In the early years of her 
married life she had carefully abstained from taking any 
part in politics, and it excited some surprise when she—a 
convert to the Greek Church — suddenly became in 1877 
an enthusiast for the Turkish war. She believed in it as a 
holy war; she lent it her utmost support. She outdid the 
old Muscovites in their horror of the Infidel. 

She particularly disliked the French, and in her court 
circle was a model of rigid propriety. In private life, how- 
ever, she could be gay and engaging. A good wife and a 
devoted mother, she caused her sons to be educated in all 
the accomplishments of gentlemen, instead of their being 
drilled soldiers as had been the case with the generation 
before them. .The young Czarevitch Nicholas was in every 
way accomplished; to Alexander, who had no taste for 
learning, she seems to have communicated her religious 
enthusiasm for the church of her adoption, while the Grand 
Duke Vladimir became one of the most accomplished musi- 
cians in Russia, a patron so far as possible of artists and 
authors. The last years of her life were clouded by ill- 
health, by her son’s death, and by gloomy forebodings as to 
the future in store for her family amid the dangers of Nihil- 
ism. When she died her husband made a morganatic 
marriage with the Princess Dolgorouka, by whom he had 
had several children. It is said that in the last years of his 
life he practised strict economy in order to provide them 
with fortunes. The connection with the Princess Dolgorouka 
was greatly disapproved by the present czar. 

When Alexander II. and his empress were crowned at 
Moscow in 1856, just after the Crimean War, Napoleon III. 
sent a brilliant embassy, headed by his kinsman, the Duc 


184 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


de Morny, to represent him at the ceremony. The equi- 
pages of the French ambassador were marvels of magnifi- 
cence; the liveries were white and gold with scarlet waist- 
coats. The English and Austrian carriages were next in 
splendor; and as for Prince Esterhazy, the Austrian ambas- 
sador, he was literally covered with diamonds and pearls. 

The illumination that night in Moscow must have seemed 
like a scene in the Arabian nights. The principal buildings 
were covered with lights from their foundations to their 
gilded domes. The emperor and empress appeared in the 
streets in an open barouche, without an escort. The crowd 
pressed round them with cries of affection and joy. Alas! 
twenty-five years later the same czar lay shattered and dying 
by a bomb, thrown under the direction of a young and 
beautiful woman, after having escaped many other attempts 
at assassination. 

The first attempt on Alexander’s life struck him with even 
more surprise than consternation; and it is said to have 
produced a deep and lasting impression on the mind of his 
son the present emperor. He was shot at while walking in 
the gardens of his palace at Saint Petersburg in 1866 by 
aman in peasant dress named Korakasof; the czar saw, 
or thought he saw, a peasant standing near throw up the 
pistol, and it went off in the air. The assassin was at once 
arrested, and, being asked why he sought to kill the czar, 
replied, because the estates of the nobles were not suf- 
ficiently divided among the peasantry. Under his peasant’s 
dress, however, he wore the clothes of a student, and on 
his person were found papers connecting him with secret 
societies, and making it plain that to him had fallen by lot 
the task of killing the emperor. He was tried and sent to 
the mines of Siberia, where he may be to this day. The 
peasant who saved the czar’s life hardly met a better fate. 
The czar gave him a palace, and wealth, and made him a 
baron; but the man was little better than a brute, ‘so 
addicted to drink that finally he was sent as a lieutenant to 
a regiment campaigning in the Caucasus, and there com- 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 185 


mitted suicide. In the following year a second attempt by 
a Pole named Berezowski gave Alexander infinite pain. 
He had tried to think that the crime of Korakasof was an 
isolated case of regicidal mania; this one of Berezowski 
inaugurated a series of such horrors, which never ceased 
till they had accomplished their purpose, and which con- 
tinue to be directed against the life of his successor to the 
present day. 

In 1867 the emperor visited the Paris Exposition as an 
act of courtesy to Napoleon III., through whose dominions 
he had passed without stopping two years before, when 
hurrying to the death-bed of his son at Nice. The king 
and crown prince of Prussia were there, and a crowd of 
other royal, ducal, and illustrious personages. Some one on 
the occasion remarked that the French emperor “looked 
like a man who had invited an incongruous set of guests, 
and did not know how to amuse them.” He was uneasy 
himself, for the prince imperial was seriously ill; the king 
of Prussia was not well pleased that higher honors were 
offered to his nephew than to himself, and the czar, to 
every one who saw him, seemed out of spirits. On June 6, 
after a review on the Champ de Mars, the royal and 
imperial guests returned to Paris, through the Bois de Bou- 
logne. Napoleon III. and the Emperor Alexander, with the 
czarevitch and the Grand Duke Vladimir on the back seat, 
occupied one carriage ; the king of Prussia and the Empress 
Eugénie were in the next, and the carriages of other nota- 
bilities followed. The crowd was great and the carriages 
moved slowly. Suddenly a Pole named Berezowski fired a 
pistol at the czar. The shot struck the nostril of an out- 
rider’s horse, causing it to rear violently, scattering its 
blood over the czarevitch and his brother. The assassin 
fired again, but his pistol burst in his hand, and he fell to 
the ground with a shriek. The correspondent of a London 
newspaper wrote : ‘ For a moment when the czar saw blood 
upon his sons he looked alarmed. Napoleon got up, 
waved his hat, and then said to the czar, ‘Sire, we have 


185 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE X1XTH CENTURY. 


been under fire together.’ Calmly the czar replied: ‘The 
lives of kings, as of their subjects, are in the hands of 
Providence.’ Next day a Te Deum was sung in the Rus- 
sian Church, where the grand dukes embraced their father, 
and showed much feeling.” 

When Berezowski was put upon his trial it turned out 
that his father and brother had been exiled to Siberia 
for participation in the Polish insurrection of 1863, and 
this fact saved him from the guillotine. The jury brought 
in a verdict of “ guilty with extenuating circumstances,” and 
he was sent to New Caledonia. The government of Na- 
tional Defence in 1870 granted him a pardon. M. Thiers 
revoked it, and it seems uncertain what has become of him. 
There can be no doubt, however, that his crime did his 
fellow-countrymen a great deal of harm. 

And now perhaps we may approach the subject of 

Russian Nihilism. Yet who can understand it with its 
ramifications which run through what is called in Europe 
the International Society ; and our Anarchists in the West, 
who are imported chiefly from Germany and Norway, are 
said by Western men to be more numerous than the general 
public in the Eastern cities is willing to suppose. Even 
Nihilists are said not to understand Nihilism, but to yield 
it a blind obedience. And first we may say that while 
there is probably hardly a peasant in Russia who is a 
genuine Nihilist, there is probably not a genuine American 
who is an Anarchist. 
“Nihilism means — Mo¢hing at all. It comes from the 
same root as annihilate. It proceeds on the supposition 
that whatever is, is wrong. Its avowed object is destruc- 
tion. Everything that exists having been destroyed, men 
may begin to think of building up again. 

It destroys, not from aversion to an individual, but 
because his or her death may help the cause. The Nihil- 
ists do not call their deeds murder, any more than the 
sheriff who hangs a man, or a soldier who shoots one, call 
their killing by that name. 


IPHE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 187 


The first plot of the Nihilists was the one that was ripen- 
ing when the Emperor Alexander I. died. He had been 
told of the discovery of a plot to assassinate him a few days 
before his death, and it had greatly discomposed him. His 
brother Nicholas’s first step on coming to the throne was 
utterly to crush out this Nihilism in his dominions. Alex- 
ander had had no personal enemies. Huis sacrifice was to 
be for the good of the cause. ‘That “‘cause’’ Nicholas set 
himself to destroy, both root and branch ; and thoroughly 
and mercilessly he prepared himself to do it. He thought, 
as his reign went on, that he had accomplished it. He 
walked fearlessly among his people all his days ; to be sure, 
it was forbidden to speak to him. On one occasion he met 
in his park the first tenor of the Italian Opera, and 
exchanged a few words with him ; the moment the czar was 
out of sight the tenor was arrested. ‘The czar attended the 
Opera that evening, when after some delay the manager 
came forward and announced that the first tenor could not 
be found. The czar started, guessed what had happened, 
and sent an aide-de-camp to the police. The singer was 
released and the play went on. A few days after, the czar, 
meeting him again, began with an apology: ‘I was very 
sorry ——”’ ‘May I implore your Majesty,” cried the 
Italian, “not to speak to me. Your Majesty will com- 
promise me with the police.” 

There is a Nihilist song in circulation which describes 
the good time coming as the day in which there will be 
no God and no czar ! 

Here is an article published in one of the Nihilist organs 
in Switzerland on the subject of political assassination ;: — 


“ A few trifling assassinations committed by us have induced 
the Russian government to proclaim a state of siege, to double 
the political police, to place Cossacks in all directions, and to 
redouble the vigilance of the gens d’armes. By a few resolute 
acts we have brought to these exaggerated measures of despera- 
tion an autocracy that years of agitation, and centuries of agony, 
the despair of young men, the groans of the oppressed, the 


ol 


188 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


curses of thousands murdered by exile, tortured to death in 
Siberian deserts and mines,— could not have effected. Who 
says that assassination is not one of the most powerful means 
by which we may carry on successful warfare against Russian 
despotism ? ” 


Another address that lies before me, after proclaiming 
that the murder of a sovereign can only be punished with 
death like any other murder, goes on to speak of the neces- 
sity of clearing away everything that exists, — government, 
religion, family ties, patriotism, and so on.\ “Then,” it 
cries, “will spring to life a new generation, pure from 
routine! Then a new dawn will light up this old earth! 
All will be happy till abuses re-accumulate, and our great 
grandchildren do over again the things that we have done. 
Thus from struggle to struggle human society, after cen- 
turies of combat, will reach perfection, and become itself 
that which you call God! Follow me, brothers! Follow 


\ me, and conquer for yourselves divinity ! ” 


Poor creatures! In these ravings we hear the voice of 
our common humanity as it looks forward to the Great Day 
of the Lord, — the “time of the restitution of all things,” 
the time for which “the whole creation” “ groaneth and 
travaileth together’? in expectation. And to think that 
that time could be hastened by blood-guiltiness — by 
assassination ! 

If this statement of the views and aims of Nihilism, culled 
from its own documents, published in its own newspapers, 
should seem exaggerated, we have only to compare it with 
Tourgenieff’s account of Nihilism in his novels, especially 
the one called ‘“ Fathers and Sons.” The great novelist sus- 
tains every word I have said upon the subject. 


~~ Only those are permitted to become influential Nihilists 


who have personal reasons for hating the government, or 
have some vengeance to wreak on some employe, or have 
received a revolutionary education, or have the revolutionary 
temperament with which some men and women appear to 
be born. 


~ 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS, I 89 


The Nihilist army is ruled by a central committee, 


which is ruled by what some secret societies call a Grand, 


Centre. But none know each other; none communicate 
directly with the Grand Centre, nor even know who he is. 
Some accounts say that Nihilists are divided into com- 
panies of five, ten, or fifteen, each with an officer over 
them, who does not communicate directly with the Central 
Committee, still less with the Grand Centre, but only with 
a delegate or sub-delegate of the committee. 

Tourgenieff was always insisting that the national defect 
of the Russians is want of w7//. The easiest thing to them, 
he says, is passive obedience. He considers that the power 
of Nihilism lies in making use of this spirit of passive obe- 


dience. Every man beneath the Grand Centre gives up / 
his private judgment, and for “ the good of the cause ’’ does; 


simply what he is required to do. 

Every treason, disobedience, or undue exhibition of 
curiosity is punished with death, — death as sudden as a 
thunderbolt. 

As all members are bound to help the rest, the power of 
the society is enormously increased, and all members be- 
come, as it were, each other’s accomplices. 

Corruption is employed to get state secrets, etc., out of 
public employes, non-commissioned officers, the police, etc. 
Sometimes money, sometimes the wiles of women, sometimes 
_ intimidation are employed. 

I said there were probably few or no peasants among the 
Nihilists, and the peasant class comprises five sixths of the 
population of European Russia : — 


bh 


“A stolid, ignorant, utterly unprogressive mass,” says one 
who knows them, “ they have received in gift to their communes 
half the empire for their own use, yet in many cases the gift 
has ruined them. Still they cling to the soil, and dread all 
change, fearing it may endanger that coveted possession. A 
dense, solid stratum of conservatism thus constitutes the base 
of Russian society, and above it lies the most corrupt set of offi- 
cials to be found in the whole world, kept in order neither by a 
public press, public opinion, nor civil service customs. The 


go> 
u 


190 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


middle and upper classes are often full of ardent wishes for the 
advancement of society, and the reform of the State. Their 
views of action are generally of the wildest and most terrible 
description; but their objects are anything but unreasonable. 
They desire to share in political power and the government of 
their own country, as is the privilege of every other nation in 
Europe, and they hope to do something for the seething mass 
of ignorance and misery around them.” 


~ Tt is from this educated class — professional men, col- 
lege students, and the younger members of the nobility — 
that the society of Nihilists recruits itself. When the 
“Emperor Alexander IJ. opened new colleges and public 
schools he had not the means to invite distinguished pro- 
fessors from other countries; he had to content himself 
with men who could be had fora small salary, — young men, 
for the most part, whose unsettled opinions were a bar to 
their getting on elsewhere. These, coming into Russia just 
as a social revolution was inaugurated, pressed progress to 
its extreme, and inspired the young people under them, 
male and female, with the wildest aspirations after liberty 
and revolution. 

Newly adopted ideas, as we all know, produce fermenta- 
tion; and fermentation will produce explosion. Young 
men and young women of the higher classes, having re- 
ceived a college education and the germs of revolutionary 
ideas, on returning to their homes from the university com- 
monly find nothing to do, nothing to interest them, nothing 
to call out their higher feelings; and they are attracted to 
Nihilism, misled by patriotic sympathies, and the charm ot 
mystery and secret power. 

All accounts tell us that, while Russians are most punctual 
in devout observances, heart religion in their country is at a 
low ebb. As it was in ancient paganism, when religion con- 
sisted in due offerings to the gods, due vows performed, and 
hecatombs sacrificed, — so the religion of the Russian peas- 
ant seems to consist in an unquestioning submission to the 
decrees of fate, and devout adoration of the sacred zkons, 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. IOI 


without any thought of personal relations to God. He brings 
home nothing from his church that will enter into his daily 
life but blind submission. 

The imagination of the Russian, always gloomy, seeks its 
outlook, among the educated, in wild schemes of patriot- 
ism and philanthropy, to be preceded by destruction, — 
while the peasantry (like our own people on sandy shores 
or in mountain districts, where the imagination has nothing to 
feed it but what it can derive from crude notions of religion) 
run into the wildest, wickedest forms of piety, if we may so 
term their religious beliefs. 

About forty years ago an educated fanatic on the eastern 
frontier of European Russia, disgusted with the wickedness 
of the world around him, retired into a forest, determined 
to make an end of this life of sin and ignominy. He did 
not attempt to proselytize, but his views soon found accept- 
ance among his neighbors, and numbers flocked to him in 
the woods crying: “Antichrist is raging round! Let us 
escape by dying of hunger!”’ The women made grave- 
clothes for themselves, their men, and the little children. 
The men dug their graves. They renounced Satan, and 
they pledged themselves never again to taste food. The 
children’s sufferings, after two days, so moved two of the 
male fanatics that they escaped from the dreadful sight. 
Then the leader, fearing other desertions, called on them 
to massacre each other. The children were killed first, 
then the women. At last only the leader and three more 
were left alive ; these fell into the hands of the police, who 
had been summoned by the fugitives. 

This mania for suicide, and indifference to death, is a 
national characteristic of the Russians.‘ In 1812 all the 
inhabitants of a village flung themselves, for the glory of 
God and the salvation of their own souls, on to a funeral 
pyre. In 1860 fifteen men for the same reason devoted 
themselves to death in one family. On the very day I 
write these lines a newspaper telegram informs us that 
hundreds of peasants have flung themselves before the train 


I92 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


that was carrying the Emperor Alexander III. to the 
Crimea. 

The same state of nerves and of excited feeling that in- 
duces such things in the ignorant, produces Nihilism in the 
educated classes. In one place eighty-four persons made 
a frantic attempt to burn themselves alive in a cavern, 
crying, “We die for Christ!” as they perished in the 
flames. 

Some sects advocate all that is ma/ura/l. They will not 
shave nor cut their hair; they do not smoke, nor drink 
spirits. ‘The consequence of those two last peculiarities is 
that they grow rich as those around them grow poor. Men, 
they say, should make for themselves all that is necessary, 
and never trade nor buy. They preach free-love, and dis- 
card marriage. They are called Negators. They recognize 
no rights of property, no social institutions. The government 
has been always very severe on dissenters from the ortho- 
dox Russian Church, and even in the time of Alexander II. 
numbers of such extravagant fanatics were sent to Siberia. 

Some sects forbid any amusements ; some are “jumpers ; ” 
others enjoin their members to live alone ; some allow two 
wives to a believer; some are socialists as well as religious 
fanatics ; some might be described as Russian Quakers. 

But this is enough. It was Taine who said that when a 
people has no proper outlet for its imagination (a gift 
which is inevitably bestowed on some persons in every 
community, however prosaic and commonplace) it will 
assuredly result in wild, uncouth misconceptions of religion. 

According to Mr. Kennan’s articles in the “ Century,” 
over one hundred and fifty thousand convicts were sent to 
Siberia in six years (from 1884 to 1890), but of these nct 
more than one in a hundred was a political exile. Of the 
political exiles the larger part, according to Mr. Kennan, 
are simply men who hold (or are supposed to hold) 
advanced political opinions, without belonging to the secret 
organization which preaches bombs and dynamite. How 
far Mr. Kennan’s testimony is true remains to be proved 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 193 


by corroborating or rebutting evidence. There can be no 
question that the Russian police, all on the guz wive, is 
ready to make arrests upon the slightest suspicion, and 
that one half of the exiles have been banished without 
trial, a large part of them by their own communes, expelled 
as unruly members, or as defaulters in their taxes, — private 
spite having probably, in a good many instances, consider- 
able to do with their misfortunes. 

When Alexander II. came to his throne Russia, ex- 
hausted by the Crimean War, had only paper money, few 
factories, only old methods in agriculture, six hundred 
miles only of railroad, and hardly any other tolerable roads 
over its enormous territory. The emperor applied himself 
to the peaceful work of reform, and carried it out with a 
skill, tact, and above all with an ease which a foreign public 
is hardly able at present to appreciate, but which may 
some day excite the wonder of those who are able to 
grasp the magnitude of the task he attempted and in part 
performed. 

In less than twenty-five years an amount of work was 
performed in Russia that it has taken a century to accom- 
plish in other lands. Into every large town in Russia now 
runs a railroad, well managed and well appointed. Steam- 
ers ply on all the rivers, even those of Siberia; produce is 
brought westward from the remotest provinces; and, alas! 
wherever Russian civilization establishes itself corruption and 
petty oppression seem to spread. 

I do not think I can better conclude this paper than by 
slightly abridging the sketch Mr. Wallace has drawn for us 
of a landed proprietor of the old school under the new 
conditions : — 


“Somewhere about sixty years ago [Mr. Wallace is writing 
in 1876] Ivan Ivanovitch was born in the country house where 
he still ves. His first lessons he received from the parish 
priest, and afterwards he was taught by a deacon’s son, who had 
studied in a theological seminary to so little purpose that he was 
unable to pass the examination. Under both these teachers he 


ue) 


194. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


was suffered to learn as little as he chose; and he was still very 
slightly acquainted with the elementary rules of arithmetic when 
his father one day declared that as he was eighteen he must 
enter the service. His father’s project that he should enter a 
cavalry regiment as a Junker, or volunteer, under an old colonel, 
a former friend, did not at all please Ivan. He had no love 
for military service, and possibly disliked the prospect of an 
examination: so, while seeming to bow implicitly to his father’s 
authority, he induced his mother to oppose the scheme. 

“The Marshal of Nobility, who happened to call one day, 
helped him out of his difficulty by offering to inscribe him as 
secretary in the office of a certain court, where his duties could 
be filled by a paid secretary. This plan exactly suited Ivan 
Ivanovitch, and in seven years, without having done a stroke of 
work, he rose to a civil rank corresponding to that of a captain 
in the army, by gradual promotion. 

“ By this time it was decided he must marry. His courtship 
did not even cost him the trouble of proposing. The whole 
affair was arranged by his parents, who chose for their son’s 
bride the daughter of their next neighbor. The young lady was 
only about sixteen, and was not remarkable for beauty, talent, 
or any other peculiarity ; but she had one very important quali- 
fication, — she was the daughter of a man who had an estate 
contiguous to their own, and who might give as dowry a certain 
bit of land they had long desired to add to their own property. 

“ Though the bridegroom had received, rather than had taken 
to himself, a wife, and did not imagine for a moment he was in 
love, he had no reason to regret the choice that was made for 
him. Maria Petrovna was exactly suited, both by nature and 
education, to be the wife of such a man as Ivan Ivanovitch. 
She had grown up at home in the society of nurses and servant- 
maids, and had never learned anything more than could be 
obtained from the parish priest and from Mam’selle, a person 
occupying a position between a servant-maid and a governess. 
The first years of her married life were not very happy, for she 
was treated by her mother-in-law as a naughty child who required 
to be frequently snubbed and lectured ; but she bore the disci- 
pline with exemplary patience, and in due time became her own 
mistress, and autocratic ruler in domestic affairs. 

“The daily life of this worthy couple became singularly regu- 
lar and monotonous. In summer Ivan Ivanovitch gets up about 
seven o’clock, and puts on, with the assistance of his valet de 
chambre, a simple costume consisting principally of a faded, 


THE EMPEROR-LIBERATOR, AND HIS REFORMS. 195 


plentifully stained dressing-gown. Having nothing particular 
to do, he sits down at the open window and looks into the yard. 
As the servants pass he stops them and questions them, and 
then gives them orders or scolds them as circumstances demand. 
Toward nine o’clock breakfast is announced, and he goes into 
the dining-room, a long, narrow apartment with bare wooden 
floor, and no furniture but a table and chairs in a more or less 
rickety condition. Here he finds his wife with the tea-urn 
before her. In a few minutes the younger children come in, 
kiss their papa’s hand, and take their places round the table. 
As the meal consists only of bread and tea it does not last long, 
and then all disperse to their several occupations. Ivan Ivano- 
vitch smokes several pipes, and then, if not too warm, goes forth 
to visit the stables and farm-yard, but soon returns to his place 
by the window, and remains wrapped in contemplation. 

‘Maria Petrovna spends her morning in a more active way. 
As soon as the breakfast-table has been cleared she goes to the 
larder, takes stock of the provisions, arranges the menu for the 
day, and gives the cook directions and the necessary materials. 
The rest of the morning she devotes to her other household 
duties. 

“ Toward one o’clock dinner is announced, and Ivan Ivano- 
vitch prepares his appetite by swallowing at one gulp a wineglass 
full of home-made bitters. 

‘“ No sooner has the last dish been removed than a deathlike 
stillness falls upon the house for about two hours. Master, 
mistress, children, servants, dogs, are taking their siesta. In 
about two hours they awake. The samovar is brought, and they 
have tea. Then Ivan Ivanovitch makes the tour of his fields 
in a drosky, consisting of two pair of wheels joined together by 
a single board on which the driver sits astride. In the evening 
often a group of peasants comes into the yard and asks to see 
the master. In reply to his question, ‘Well, children, what do 
you want?’ they tell their story in a confused, rambling kind of 
way, several of them speaking at a time, and he has to question 
and cross-question them before he can find out clearly what 
they desire. If he tells them he cannot grant it, they probably 
resort to supplication: ‘Little father! Ivan Ivanovitch! be 
generous. You are our father —we are your children,’ etc. 

“The family leads a very isolated life, but they have one bond 
of connection with the great outer world. Two of the sons are 
officers in the army, and they write home occasionally to their 
mother and sisters. 


196 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT# CENTURY. 


“ During the Crimean War Ivan Ivanovitch half awoke from 
his habitual lethargy, and read the papers. He was a little sur- 
prised that no great victories were announced, and that the 
army did not at once advance on Constantinople. Some of his 
neighbors told him that the army was disorganized, and that the 
whole system of Nicholas had proved worthless. Well! — that 
might be true. He did not understand politics. It would all 
come right in the end. And so it did, after a fashion, but ere 
long he was startled by rumors more alarming than any rumors 
of war. The emancipation of the serfs was in question. Fora 
long time he would not believe it. When he was forced to do 
so he was somewhat alarmed at the prospect of losing his 
authority. He had never been a cruel master, but he had not 
spared the rod when he considered it necessary, and he believed 
birch twigs to be a necessary instrument in Russian agriculture. 
When he found that the peasants were to receive a large part 
of his estate for their own use, he considered himself ruined. 

“These dark forebodings have not been by any means real- 
ized. His serfs pay him annually a considerable sum, and they 
are at hand to cultivate his fields for a fair remuneration. His 
yearly outlay is now considerably greater, but the price of grain, 
when it has risen, counterbalances the increased expenditure. 
The administration of the estate is much less patriarchal; much 
that was formerly left to custom and tacit understanding is now 
regulated by express agreement. More money is paid out, but 
a good deal more comesin. There is less authority in the hands 
of the master, but he is relieved from much of his responsi- 
bility. Ivan Ivanovitch would have great difficulty in deciding 
whether he is now a richer or a poorer man. He has fewer 
horses, and fewer servants, but he has still more than he re- 
quires, and his mode of life has undergone no perceptible altera- 
tion. Maria Petrovna complains that she is no longer supplied 
with eggs, chickens, and home-spun linen by the peasants, and 
that everything is three times as dear as it used to be; but some- 
how the larder is still full, and abundance reigns in the house 
as of old.” 


Gira CE Reali. 
FOUR SULTANS.} 


WE may fill up the interval between the Crimean War 
and the Russian invasion of Turkey in 1877 by 
some account of the three sultans who ruled during that 
period, and of the fourth who in 1876 ascended the throne. 
It is not always easy to intertwine the threads of narrative 
while telling the story of two countries, and it is sometimes. 
necessary to retrace our steps over already trodden ground. 
Mahmoud II., the destroyer of the Janissaries, died in 
1839, leaving three sons, two of whom, Abdul Medjid and 
Abdul Aziz, subsequently mounted the Turkish throne. By 
Mohammedan law the sons of a deceased sovereign who 
has no brothers, succeed each other, till on the death of 
the youngest the heirship reverts to the sons of the eldest 
brother. As Sultan Mahmoud had no brother, he was suc- 
ceeded by his son Abdul Medjid, who came to the throne 
during one of those crises in the Eastern Question which 
convulse Europe about once in fifteen years. On this occa- 
sion, as we have seen, Ibrahim Pasha, the bold son of the 
viceroy of Egypt, had conquered Syria, and was threatening 
Constantinople. Russia had volunteered her protection to 
the Porte, and the balance of power was disturbed. 
The reign of Abdul Medjid lasted from 1839 to 1861. 
Turkish history has no record of any other sovereign so 


1 For this chapter I am largely indebted to Count E. de Kératry, 
who in 1878 published a book called “Sultan Murad V.,” from which 
I made by translation and abridgment an article published in the 
“Living Age,” No. 1787.— E. W. L. 


198 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


humane, so fond of order, so much inclined to accept the 
refinements of modern civilization ; but the systematic oppo- 
sition of his pashas, that oligarchy of office-holders who 
aspired to be the actual governing power in Turkey, ren- 
dered his reforming #a@/¢s, or edicts, of very little avail. In 
vain did Abdul Medjid and his successors promulgate decrees 
in favor of non-Mussulmans; neither Jew nor Christian 
dared seek protection from such documents in opposition 
to public opinion. 

As a reformer Abdul Medjid had to keep his eye upon 
all public officers, provincial governors, and judges; in 
matters of religion his task was to build up a liberal party 
among the interpreters of the Koran; and the struggle to 
accomplish these things without support proved too great 
for him. | | 
~The Crimean War, too, notwithstanding its avowed aim 
of protecting Turkey, brought two new elements of decay 
to hasten the disintegration of the empire. 

Up to 1856 Turkey had been free from foreign creditors. 
The opening of the Dardanelles brought commerce, and a 
foreign loan, and on the steps of indebtedness followed 
extravagance, speculation, and national bankruptcy. 

Besides this, the great Powers, by the Treaty of Paris, 
forbade the interference of Russia in the internal affairs of 
Turkey, and at the same time renounced all right to inter- 
meddle themselves. This “self-denying ordinance’ cut 
off from Abdul Medjid a great source of strength. He 
became no match for his conservative pashas, and most 
dreadful massacres in Syria were the first fruits of the new 
system of diplomacy. 

Finding his solicitude for his subjects barren of good 
resuits, Abdul Medjid, during the last years of his life, gave 
himself up to self-indulgence, especially in wines and in the 
pleasures of the table. He limited his reforms thenceforth 
to his harem and his household. To his courtiers he was 
an amiable and considerate master, and he was ever a ten- 
der, loving husband to his wives. The death of one of his 


FOUR SULTANS. 199 


favorites, to whom he is said ever to have borne himself as 
knight to lady, brought on an attack of melancholy which 
hastened his end. 

If we look back to the reign of his father Mahmoud we 
shall see how Abdul Medjid redeemed at least court life 
from barbarity, and softened the brutal element in Oriental 
manners. 

Mahmoud made no scruple of strangling his pashas with- 
out forms of law; he massacred without pity or remorse his 
whole corps of Janissaries ; and his wives, if any offended 
him, were never pardoned. Abdul Medyjid, unlike his 
father, loved justice and mercy. Devoted as he was to his 
own son Murad, he never dreamed of delivering himseif of 
his brother Abdul Aziz in order to open the succession to 
this beloved son. Ottoman custom, from the earliest his- 
tory of the race, has, as I said, fixed the succession to the 
throne and the caliphate, not by hereditary descent from 
father to son, but successively to every living son of a 
dead sultan. For this reason every sultan from Bajazet to 
Ahmed I. had been guilty of fratricide. But Abdul Medjid 
refused with horror all suggestions of that kind, and treated 
his brother Abdul Aziz with a persistent kindness and con- 
sideration, which Abdul Aziz, when subsequently upon the 
throne, did not return to his nephew Murad. 

Mahmoud II. transmitted to neither of his sons the daring 
nor the strength of will that made him great. Their mothers’ 
characters came out in them. Abdul Aziz cared nothing 
for the welfare of his subjects; he hated the civilization of 
Europe; he was a true Turk of the old school. In person 
he was more like his father Mahmoud than his elder brother, 
and he displayed the savagery of the destroyer of the Janis- 
saries without his noble qualities. His mother was a daugh- 
ter of the Kurds, and he inherited the temperament of her 
race. She exercised over him a fatal influence, being a 
woman of low, vulgar type, fit only to develop his bad pas- 
sions. She used to laugh when she saw him amuse himself 
by plucking live birds in his boyhood, and applauded him 


200 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


when upon one occasion he tore to pieces with his hands a 
tame dove belonging to his brother Abdul Medjid. It is said 
that when he was about sixteen she made him a present of 
a young Bulgarian slave-girl. This poor creature having 
offended her young lord, he tore her, as he had done the 
dove, limb from limb. His Kurdish mother, without blam- 
ing her * young lion,” as she called him, had the body sewn 
up in a sack, and sunk in the Bosphorus, forbidding all who 
knew of it on pain of death to say anything of the matter 
to Sultan Mahmoud or Prince Abdul Medjid. Abdul Aziz 
cared nothing for study,—reading and writing wearied 
him ; but he was fond of active sports, and was a muscular 
Mohammedan. He destroyed the pretty theatre erected 
by Abdul Medjid at the Dolma-Baghtché Palace, but he 
built a private circus near his own apartments, the enter- 
tainments in which consisted of a number of slaves being 
forced to feign sleep till a pack of hounds were let loose 
upon them. The terrors, struggles, sufferings that ensued 
were inexpressibly delightful to the sultan, and he expected 
every one present to share his enthusiasm. It was by flat- 
tering him on this point that the Armenian Seraf Abraham 
Pasha (brother-in-law to Nubar Pasha, the minister of the 
khedive) gained his favor, and retained it to the end of 
his reign. - 

With his natural love for killing and savagery, it is fortu- 
nate that the history of Abdul Aziz does not exhibit a long 
list of horrors; but a public opinion against wanton cruelty 
had been formed under Abdul Medjid, and ministers such 
as Fuad Pasha, and Aali, who were by turns the grand 
viziers of Abdul Aziz for eleven years, would not have 
~ countenanced open brutality. By the ascendency of strong 
“minds over the weak they held in check the ferocity of 
the savage. Abdul Aziz frequently endeavored to get rid of 
his two great ministers. In 1863 he peremptorily dismissed 
them, and offered the place of grand vizier to his chief 
buffoon. ‘The man, however, had more sense of propriety 
than his master. He declined so high a post, and contented 


SULTAN ABDUL AZIZ, 


| LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS” 
UREANA 


LOUR SULTANS. 201 


himself with one equally unsuitable, —that of minister of 
public instruction. 

| “Fuad Pasha accompanied Abdul Aziz on his visit to the 
_Paris Exposition in 1867, and to the courts of western 
Europe, but he drew upon himself the displeasure of his 
master by his attempts to make him conduct himself with 


civilized decorum. The imperial barbarian brought back | 
from western Europe a hatred of civilization, founded most \ 
probably on secret envy. He was bitter against Fuad, and | 
also against his heir-presumptive, Prince Murad Effendi ;_ 


for that young prince, by the graces of his person, the 
modesty of his deportment, and his accomplishments, had 
made himself a great favorite, especially with the future 
Emperor William, then king of Prussia. 

Abdul Aziz, from the first moment of his return to his own 
capital, cherished a project of changing the old law of 
succession, and setting aside the late sultan’s son. Accord- 
ing to the customs of the seraglio, the infant children of 
the reigning race, unless born to the sultan himself, must be 
destroyed. Abdul Aziz had succeeded in saving one son, 
Yussef Izzeddin, born in 1854, who was doubly excluded 
from inheritance, both by the law of succession, and by his 
having been born before his father’s accession to the 
throne. 

This project occupied the attention of Abdul Aziz for the 
remainder of his reign. He tried to create a precedent by 
permitting the khedive of Egypt to set aside the legal 
claim of an uncle and a cousin to the vice-regal throne ; 
but Fuad and Aali refused resolutely to favor their mas- 
ter’s views. Yussef Izzeddin was a spoilt boy, educated by 
his grandmother, and inheriting his father’s ferocious pas- 
sions, while the true heir, the son of Abdul Medjid, showed 
all the noble qualities of his dead father, and gave promise 
of becoming a sovereign open to all the good influences of 
civilization. Abdul Aziz dared not set himself in open 
opposition to his distinguished ministers, but with bitter 
resentment waited till death or opportunity should dispose 


v 


202 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


of them. Meanwhile he did his best to thwart their ideas 
of progress and of policy. In vain did Fuad and Aali 
exert themselves to promulgate edicts for the protection of 
Christians; the sultan himself led the opposition against 
them. They were worm out with the struggle. Their 
edicts remained inoperative. They died within a few 
months of each other. 

Both Fuad and Aali were aware that reforms in law and 
politics should be preceded by reforms in education and 
manners. Each had but one wife, and on one occasion, 
only one, they induced the sultan to sit at the same table 
with other persons, — the Prince of Wales, the foreign am- 
bassadors, and his own ministers. It was the first time that 
the Commander of the Faithful had eaten meat with any 
man, the rule being that the head of the Moslem faith (like 
the pope) must always eat alone. 

Railroads and schools were projected and patronized by 
Fuad and Aali; but the trunk line of railroad between 
Constantinople and Belgrade was opposed by the Servians, 
till at last the contractors threw up the work, having only 
completed short lines of unconnected railway in places 
where the right was conceded to them. 

The schools fared little better, — only one, for boys of all 
religions, came into successful operation ; but the navy was 
improved, the soldiers were better armed. This was, how- 
ever, all that Turkey gained from its enormous foreign loans. 
Vast sums went into the hands of middlemen and specu- 
lators, among them the sultan himself, who speedily learned 
all civilization could teach him of the modus operandi of 
the stock exchange. 

Money once obtained, the sultan spent it in absurd build- 
ing projects. He was fond of jewelry, and spent vast sums 
on precious stones, particularly diamonds. He had no 
knowledge of painting, but had a passion for buying indiffer- 
ent daubs. Sculpture is an art forbidden by his faith, but 
he took a fancy to set up an equestrian statue of himself in 
Constantinople. The work was executed at Munich, but 


FOUR SULTANS. 203 


when it reached his capital it was such a cause of scandal 
to the soffas (a class answering to the scribes and lawyers 
of the New Testament) that it was hidden away for several 
years, and recast into cannon on the death of its original. 
His personal expenses were enormous. He had a nervous 
horror of fire, and one of his freaks was to destroy all the 
beautiful furniture in the Dolma-Baghtché Palace, and replace 
it by iron-work. One of his devices for raising money was 
frequently to command his vassal the khedive, to visit him 
at Constantinople, well knowing that he dared not present 
himself before his sovereign without magnificent gifts. On 
one of these occasions, in July, 1873, the present to the 
sultan amounted to three million and a half of dollars, 
besides dackshish distributed to his princes and ministers. 
Looking to future favor the khedive offered on this occa- 
sion six hundred thousand dollars to the heir of the Turkish 
throne, but Prince Murad refused it, saying: “ My dignity 
will not permit me to receive your money as a gift ; still less 
would I take it as the price of a protection which ought 
neither to be bought nor sold.” 

At that moment the young prince was pecuniarily em- 
barrassed, owing to his relations with his uncle Abdul Aziz ; 
and this leads us to speak of his early life more particularly. 

His mother was a Circassian. He was born Sept. 21, 
1840. His father early removed him from the pernicious 
influences of the harem, and placed him under manly and 
able tutors. Abdul Medjid superintended his boy’s educa- 
tion himself, and was often present at his lessons. He 
called him, affectionately, “ Muraddin,” or “my Murad ;” 
and twice a week a report of the boy’s progress was sent 
in to him. © 

Docile, patient, and gifted with a good memory, the child 
soon learned to read and write his own language. A talent 
for composition developed itself as he grew up, and_ his 
poems, though not numerous, were remarkable for their 
delicate taste and elegance of diction. 

Besides Turkish and Arabic, he studied Turkish history, 


204. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE X1XTH CENTURY. 


arithmetic, geometry, and drawing. When he was fourteen 
he began to study French. His teacher was the future 
grand vizier Edhem Pasha, who had been the instructor of 
Abdul Medjid. 

The history of Edhem is a curious one. He was born 
of Greek parents, and saved from the massacre of Scio in 
1822. He was then sold as a slave in Constantinople, and 
bought by the grand vizier, who sent him to Paris, whence 
he returned a bachelor of arts, and one of the best pupils 
at the Ecole des Mines. He was advanced to high digni- 
ties, was several times minister, and was made grand vizier, 
Feb. 5, 1877, after the unjust dismission of Midhat Pasha. 

Murad soon learned to read, write, and understand 
French, but he never could speak it fluently. Still, during 
his journey in western Europe in 1867 he made himself 
understood in the courts he visited, and his conversation 
made everywhere a favorable impression. One reason why 
he made no great progress in languages (the most impor- 
tant accomplishment for a sovereign) was that his whole 
soul was absorbed in a passion for music. He not only 
played the most difficult music well, but he solaced himself 
with musical composition, frequently setting his own words 
to his own airs. All his music was, however, plaintive ; it 
seemed to breathe a presentiment of his own sad destiny. 

Subsequently Murad developed a taste for architecture, 
less hurtful to his temperament than his love for music, but 
more dangerous to his purse; for during the latter years of 
Abdul Aziz’s reign his love of building brought him great 
pecuniary embarrassment. 

He was constitutionally sweet-tempered, and was beloved 
by those about him ; but he appears to have been deficient 
in that strength of character which no Turk, if it be not his 
by nature, can acquire under the enervating conditions of 
his domestic life. Abdul Medjid emancipated his brothers 
and his sons from that law of Mohammedan etiquette which 
confined all the princes of the blood-royal to the bounds of 
the seraglio. 


FOUR SULTANS. 205 


Great was the grief of Abdul Medjib’s children when that 
enlightened sovereign and kind parent, at the age of thirty- 
eight, was gathered to his fathers of the race of Othman. 
Reschid (or Richard), the third son, now heir presumptive 
of his brother Abdul Hamid, was on the point of commit- 
ting suicide. Murad alone accepted his changed position 
with composure, protecting and comforting his younger 
brothers. 

Abdul Aziz, who had promised him many favors on his 
accession, by no means kept his word. In 1863 Ismail 
Pasha, who had succeeded his uncle Said as viceroy of 
Egypt, came to Constantinople to receive his investiture as 
khedive. In gratitude for the permission to leave his 
throne to his own son, according to the European law of 
succession, he offered a magnificent steam-yacht to his 
suzerain. Abdul Aziz was delighted with the gift, and 
instantly embarked for Egypt, taking with him Murad, 
whom he appeared afraid to leave behind. On their return 
from this excursion he manifested great jealousy of his 
young heir, whom he was always suspecting of conspiracy: 
On one occasion he confined him for a year to the 
boundaries of the seraglio. In 1867 Abdul Aziz visited, as 
we have said, the Paris Exposition. The origin of the 
troubles of 1876 and 1877 in Bosnia and Herzegovina was, 
it is said, the burthen of the increased taxes imposed to 
pay the expenses of this journey. Abdul Aziz was accom- 
panied by his own son, Yussef Izzeddin, and his two 
nephews, Murad and Abdul Hamid. Before reaching 
Marseilles, however, his anger against Murad broke out 
afresh, and he was anxious to leave him on board the yacht, 
or send him back to Constantinople. Fuad Pasha here 
interposed, objecting that the sovereigns of Europe would 
not understand such treatment of the heir presumptive. 

Under this pressure the sultan was obliged to yield, 
but everywhere during their journey he found fresh occa- 
sion to be jealous of his handsome nephew. He was 
continually complaining of his conduct, which appeared to 


206 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


others to be marked by tact and good sense in every 
particular. He took it extremely ill that Queen Victoria, 
Napoleon III., and the king of Prussia, should show more 
attention to a young man of twenty-seven, the heir-pre- 
sumptive of the Turkish Empire, than to his own ill-condi- 
tioned son. When they got back to Constantinople Murad 
had to pay for his popularity in London, Paris, and Berlin. 
He was kept like a state prisoner in his own apartments in 
the Dolma-Baghtché Palace, or in his country house of 
Kourbalidere. But his servants frequently connived at his 
escape for a few hours. On these occasions he would 
always make his way to the house ofa French friend at 
Pera... “ Now then,” he would cry, “for a visit: tomthe 
French Theatre!” 

Such visits were. very dangerous both for the prince and 
his accomplice. ‘The disguise of a false beard and a felt 
hat might easily have been penetrated by the eyes of some 
old pasha; and frequently the prince, becoming alarmed 
for his companion’s safety, would say: “ Let us go home 
to your house. I will play and sing for you, and then we 
can talk philosophy.” 

He is said to have been a good converser. He had, of 
course, not what would have been called a liberal educa- 
tion for a European, but he could talk agreeably on a large 
variety of subjects, and put questions like a man who wants 
to know and understand. He was tolerant and liberal both 
in religion and politics, — almost too liberal perhaps, for his 
French friends seem to have been men of very advanced 
ideas. He often expressed his earnest hope that when he 
came to the throne he might be able to promote self- 
government among his people. 

He once employed a French lawyer in Constantinople to 
draw him up a constitution, but the draft was never fin- 
ished. Murad himself, however, composed a paper in 
which his wishes on the subject were set down. 

No foreigner was allowed to visit him openly. Even Sir 
Henry Elliott, the English ambassador, was denied access 


FOUR SULTANS. 207 


to him. A Frenchman, however, by the aid of one of the 
prince’s tradespeople, made his way to his country place, 
and has left an account of the interview : — 


“We reached the ¢chzfizk, or country seat, of Kourbalidere,” 
he says, ‘“ which was surrounded by a high white wall with an 
enormous entrance gate. ‘We must go in by a little door,’ 
said my cicerone, pointing to a wicket. He rang; a black 
eunuch opened it with due precaution, but on recognizing my 
companion he welcomed him politely, and led the way to a 
summer house in a beautiful garden. There, in a room luxuri- 
ously furnished, Prince Murad stood, expecting our arrival. 
Without permitting us to complete our Oriental salutation, he 
held out his hand smiling, and invited us to be seated. He 
wore an English morning suit of light gray cloth, the only sign 
of the Turk about him being a fez. He was small, but well- 
made. He looked in good health, and had a clear complexion. 
He was thirty-three, but looked younger. His eyes were bright 
and soft, intelligent and tender. 

“The conversation turned on Europe, which gave him the 
opportunity of speaking of his travels. The city he most ad- 
mired was Paris; the country he liked best was England; the 
sovereign who had most impressed him was the king of Prussia. 

““¢ When we were staying at Potsdam,’ he said, ‘I left my 
room early one morning, and went into the garden. I saw 
some one at a little distance talking quite familiarly with a 
sentinel. My surprise was great when I recognized the king 
of Prussia. When he saw me he came toward me, quitting 
the sentinel with a few parting words and a kind nod. “Ah!” 
said I to myself, ‘“‘now I behold a model king, without pride or 
pretension.” I gave him at once my affection and esteem.’” 


Murad then asked the visitor about his own travels, and 
appeared particularly interested in his account of the United 
states.a) lie ieam) ever sultan,” he ‘said, “1 hope to: see 
Mussulmans and Christians, Jews and idolaters (if there 
be any in my dominions) sitting on the same bench, and 
learning to look upon each other as brothers.” 

The conversation lasted an hour and a half. It appeared 
to give great pleasure to Murad, who requested his French 
guest to correspond with him. This led to a series of 


208 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


letters on the affairs of Europe, which lasted several years. 
Several of Murad’s letters upon Turkish politics were pub- 
lished anonymously by his correspondent in one of the 
French papers. 

‘“ You cannot imagine,” said Murad to another friend, 
“what disgust and weariness I sometimes feel when sur- 
rounded by the women of my harem. ‘The abject submis- 
sion that prevails among them withers the germs of love. 
I get so tired of this domestic life that it is the cause of my 
taking more wine and mastc (the Levant brandy) than is 
good for me.” 

Alas! this taste, which had hastened his good father’s 
end, was to wreck the career of a prince endowed by nature 
with every good disposition. It was also unfortunate that 
Dr. Capoleone, who had been assigned to him as his physi- 
cian, was an ignorant, low-minded Italian, who cared more 
to minister to his patient’s weaknesses than to help him to 
overcome them. 

A Greek doctor of a different stamp, Dr. Mavroyéni, 
had been assigned to Abdul Hamid. That prince’s mother 
had died of consumption, and his constitution was delicate. 
He, too, had inherited a taste for drink, but Dr. Mavroyéni 
assured him it would be his destruction. “Then I will 
never touch wine or liquor again!’ said Abdul Hamid, 
and he kept his word. Murad might have made a similar 
resolution had his doctor been a man who could have 
inspired him to make it. Italian, Greek, Jewish, and 
Armenian doctors have often played important parts in 
Turkish history. Dr. Mavroyéni contributed largely to 
Abdul Hamid’s elevation to the caliphate. Dr. Capoleone, 
on the contrary, by his ignorance and malpractice, a to 
the sad fate of the elder brother. 

After the deaths of his great ministers Aali and Fuad 
Pasha, Abdul Aziz had no check upon his passions. He 
had eight grand viziers in five years, the worst of whom 
was Mahmoud Nedim Pasha, who, like his master, was 
bent on increasing his own wealth by every means in his 


FOUR SULTANS. 209 


power. To this end he became a creature of General 
Ignatieff, the Russian ambassador, and was guided by his 
advice in all matters of government. He belonged neither 
to Young Turkey nor the old school, but was influenced 
solely by self-interest and cupidity. In three years, under 
his administration, the Turkish debt increased nearly four 
hundred millions of dollars. The substitution of Yussef 
Izzeddin for Prince Murad as heir presumptive was a point 
on which the Russian ambassador agreed with the sultan 
and the grand vizier. He urged, however, that the change 
in the law of succession should be effected without violence, 
and wear the appearance ofa salutary reform. A procla- 
mation to that effect had been several times on the point 
of being promulgated, but was postponed on each occasion. 
in consequence of the opposition of England, the court astrol-. 
oger, and the shezk-wl-/s/am, or chief interpreter of the Ko-. 
ran, who utterly refused to issue a /e¢va contrary to the spirit: 
and the letter of the cher?, or Turkish unwritten constitution. 

In 1876, however, the hesitation of the Sultan Abdul: 
Aziz came to anend. The proclamation was to take place: 
on the 25th of June. Murad was sounded as to his will-. 
ingness to resign his rights, and peremptorily refused the 
offers made to him. He also refused with horror the offer: 
of some Greeks to create a disturbance while the sultan, 
should be at public prayers, and in the confusion to kill 
Abdul Aziz. Pe 

‘Tf I am raised to the throne because my people wish me 
to reign,” he said, “so be it. But no violence shall be 
offered to the person of myuncle. I should detest a throne 
that had cost a murder. I shudder at the bare idea of such, 
a crime.” ‘But suppose,” said one of those about him, 
“that there was no alternative between his death and. 
yours?’’ Then let me die,” was the prince’s answer. 
There seemed no little probability of this event when the: 
eight male descendants of Abdul Medjid received a com-. 
mand to move into the Dolma-Baghtché Palace, and there 
await the sultan’s orders. 

14 


210 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


At that time all classes in Constantinople seemed ripe for 
revolution. Abdul Aziz had made young Yussef Izzeddin 
commander in the army, and had placed a younger son, 
just ten years old, at the head of the navy; but such ap- 
pointments did not compensate the soldiers or the sailors 
for arrears of pay. Young Turkey was indignant at the 
banishment of some literary men, who were its leaders. 
Old Turkey was opposed to impious changes in the law of 
succession. Old Turks and young Turks agreed in hating 
Russia, and blushed to see the subservience of the Com- 
mander of the Faithful to his hereditary enemy. 

Jews, Greeks, and Armenians had all causes of complaint 

against the government of Abdul Aziz. Even his court and 
household despised him. He was known to be dishonest 
' whenever he could see a chance to gain. When not roused 
by temporary fits of savage anger, he was grim, torpid, and 
abusive. Yet two women in his household loved him, — 
his mother, who, with all her faults, was devoted to her son, 
and his third wife, or more properly the third woman who 
had borne him children; for, by Mohammedan custom, no 
legal marriage is possible to a sultan. This girl was a 
Circassian. She loved him with such fervor that her end 
was hastened by his death. She died, partly of lung dis- 
ease, and partly of grief, only a week after him. She was 
sister (or near relative) to Hassan, who avenged her 
death, and that of the master she had loved, by a wholesale 
massacre. 
“In the spring of 1876 the question of succession had 
produced a struggle between English and Russian influence 
in the affairs of Turkey. England favored Murad and the 
legitimate succession’; Russia lent herself to the views of 
Abdul Aziz, and was anxious to see Yussef Izzeddin pro- 
claimed heir to the throne. The English fleet was ordered 
to Besika Bay, at the entrance to the Dardanelles, and the 
Russian government promised the sultan material support in 
case of difficulty.” 


The most influential adherent of Murad at this period 
1 


FOUR SULTANS. 211 


was Midhat Pasha, a statesman on whom had fallen the | 
mantles of Aali and Fuad Pasha. Midhat planned at this | 
crisis a revolution. He had great influence with the sofras, © 
the students and interpreters of the Koran, of whom there 
were from thirty to forty thousand in Constantinople. His 
chief task in the affair, however, was that of buying the — 
neutrality of the Grand Vizier Mahmoud Nedim Pasha. 
This end Midhat successfully accomplished, and the first 
fruits of the negotiation were that the grand vizier declined 
Russian assistance in the event of an insurrection. A rising 
of sofas and of workingmen employed by the government 
soon after took place. ‘The sultan becoming alarmed, sent 
to the mosqes to inquire what were the demands and desires 
of the soffas. He was answered, the immediate dismissal 
of his grand vizier and the shezk-u/-ls/am, and the substi- 
tution of Midhat Pasha and Hairullah Effendi. 

The sultan yielded immediately. He only stipulated, in 
deference to Russia, that Ruchdi, and not Midhat, should be 
nominated grand vizier, and that Midhat should content 
himself with a subordinate position, while Hairullah should 
take charge of the religion of the State. 

Ruchdi was a man amiable and undecided. In politics 
he was, what is called in western Europe, a conservative. 
He was willing, however, to swim with the current, and at 
this crisis his appointment was acceptable to Midhat Pasha. 
The sultan, as if to make up for his grand vizier’s want of 
will, nominated Hussein Avni, the incarnation of energy, 
to be war minister. By this time there was serious revolt 
in the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. ae 

The history of Hussein Avni is a curious one. He was 
born in a district of Asia Minor, known as Sparta, because 
peopled originally by a Spartan colony; and he exhibited 
all the daring, courage, and pertinacity which distinguished 
the comrades of Leonidas among the people of Greece. 
When he was sixteen he went forth to seek his fortune at 
Constantinople. He entered a mosque as student in law 
and theology, having an uncle who served as &hoda there, 


212 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT# CENTURY. 


that is, as teacher and preacher. But he soon found he 
had mistaken his vocation. He obtained an appointment 
to the Military Academy, and remained attached to it till he 
was thirty-three, first as student, then as sub-professor, with 
the rank of major. During those years he translated sev- 
eral French books upon tactics, which brought him into 
notice, and opened to him a career. _ He distinguished 
himself in the Crimean War, and was chief of staff to Omar 
Pasha... At one time he was made grand vizier, because 
both Abdul Aziz and the vafde believed that he would lend 
himself to their scheme of substituting Yussef Izzeddin for 
Murad as heir to the Turkish throne; but Hussein was too 
. good a patriot to favor Russian views. 

' When he lost the grand-viziership, on the restoration of 
. Mahmoud Nedim to the favor of the sultan, he set out on a 
tour to western Europe, where he was particularly delighted 
with England and her institutions; but he was suddenly 
recalled. The sultan flattered himself that a man of 
Hussein’s energy and determination would easily, as sevas- 
kier, or general-in-chief, contro] the revolutionary element, 
and hold it down with an iron hand.. He had not miscal- 
culated the energy of his war minister ; but he was mistaken 
in the direction of the iron hand. 

An understanding speedily took place between Midhat 
Pasha and Hussein Avni. A plan of reform was drawn up, 
combining equality of all persons before the law, a parlia- 
ment, which should control the public purse, the responsi- 
bility of ministers, and greater freedom of the press. On 
the 31st of May the soffas and others were to meet in 
one of the grand mosques, and send a delegation to request 
the proposed reforms from Ruchdi, the new grand vizier. 
If the sultan consented, giving substantial guarantees for his 
good faith, the revolution would be accomplished. If he 
refused or hesitated, he would be dethroned, and his ‘next 
heir would be proclaimed by the title of Murad V. 

Up to this point Prince Murad was kept informed of all 
that was going on, notwithstanding his state of close seclu- 


FOUR SULTANS, 213 


sion. He approved all the projects of reform, and con- 
sented to accept the throne if offered to him, but on con- 
dition that his dethroned uncle should be treated honorably, 
and that no indignity should be inflicted on him except the 
loss of his power and prerogatives. But amine was being 
dug beneath this project of a popular revolution, — Hussein 
Avni was determined to forestall it by a coup a’ état. 

Midhat, Ruchdi, Ahmet Kaiserli (the head of the navy), 
and Hairullah Effendi the shezk-ud-/slam, all gave in their 
adherence to the plan of Hussein Avni. His Spartan spirit 
made him despise mixed multitudes, and a high-handed 
movement was far more to his taste than the underhand 
intrigues of the originally projected revolution. 

Already the shezk-ul-Islam had prepared a /fefva to 
authorize the deposition of the Commander of the Faithful. 
It was in these words : — 


Question. If the Chief of Believers gives proof of derange- 
ment, or of ignorance in public affairs, if he employs the public 
revenues for his own personal ends to an extent ruinous to the 
nation and the State, if he causes confusion between things 
spiritual and things temporal, and if his continuance in power 
is hurtful to the State and to the nation, may he be deposed ? 

Answer. The law of the Prophet says: Yes! 

Written by the humble Hassan Hairullah, to whom may God 
be merciful ! 


Neither Hussein Avni nor Midhat thought it best to 
inform Prince Murad of this change of programme. 

On the night of Monday, May 30, 1876, the minister of 
war and the director of the Military Academy had their 
troops under arms, ready to march, as they were led to 
believe, into Bulgaria. At the appointed hour they were 
led to the palace, whose water-front was already guarded by 
the boats of the ironclads. A 

All this took place after midnight. The night was dark 
and rainy; the sound of the waves upon the beach con- 
cealed slight noises. All in the palace lay asleep. Murad 
was sleeping heavily, when a quarter before three the 


214 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


seraskier, Hussein Avni, entered his chamber. He shook 
the prince’s arm and begged him to rise and dress himself. 
Seen unexpectedly at that hour and under those circum- 
stances, the stern and bearded countenance of Hussein 
Avni inspired Murad with nervous terror. 

«What is the matter?” he asked, his first thought being 
that his uncle had discovered all, and had sent this man to 
murder him. 

‘The palace is surrounded by soldiers. Abdul Aziz can- 
not escape. At break of day he will be told that he has 
ceased to reign, and that his lawful heir, Murad V., has been 
/ proclaimed sultan.”’ 

These words in a harsh voice frightened the prince, who 
unhappily during the suspense and excitement of the past 
few days had been taking wine too freely. He refused to 
get up, saying: “I had rather be murdered in my bed.” 

“And so you will be if you do not rise and come with me 
at once,’’ was the stern answer; “but to allay your suspl- 
cions take the revolver hanging at your bed’s head, and at 
the smallest sign of treason shoot me through the brain.” 

At last, half reassured, Murad got up, took the revolver, 
and followed Hussein Avni. As they were leaving the 
palace they were stopped by a sentinel. The sevaskier had 
forgotten the password. With great presence of mind he 
opened his cloak, and showed his breast covered with 
orders. ‘Then roughly pushing the sentry aside, he said: 
* Fool! cannot you recognize your commander-in-chief and 
his aide-de-camp?’’ The man drew back, and they passed 
out, — the one bold and self-possessed, the other suspicious 
and unnerved. 

A caigue was waiting for them; they entered it with a 
few followers. Murad was to cross the Golden Horn and 
so reach Stamboul, but Hussein Avni, who had some orders 
to give the fleet, insisted on passing under the stern of an 
ironclad. This put fresh apprehension into the heart of 
the new sultan. He thought that the steamer was to be 
his prison, and took no pains to conceal his great alarm. 


SULAAN MURAD 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINGIS 
UREANA 


FOUR SULTANS, 215 


Fortunately, the caigue was detained only a few moments, 
and those in her landed safely, without further adventure, on 
the beach at Constantinople. Thence they drove to the 
war-office, — the seraskieriat. 


All the members of the divan, including Midhat Pasha, | 


the sheik-wl-/stam, and the sheriff of Mecca, were awaiting 
their arrival, There were several w/emas, and several 


Christian dignitaries in the assembly. The act of the | 


deposition of Abdul Aziz was then read, after which that. 


which proclaimed Murad his successor. 

When a salute of one hundred and one guns announced 
what had happened to the public, there was a general 
explosion of enthusiasm. No regrets were expressed for 


the fall of Abdul Aziz. Western Europe and Turkey were 


of one accord, but it is said that when. the Emperor Alex-. 


ander of Russia, at Ems, got a telegram with the news from: 


General Ignatieff he sat for ten minutes without uttering 
word. | er 

From the war-office Murad drove to the water-side, 
through an enthusiastic crowd of his new subjects. He 
embarked in a caigwe with forty-eight oars, which rowed 
him back to the Dolma-Baghtché Palace. On his way he 
met a smaller boat with his uncle on board of her. Murad’s 
mind had been diverted from the terrors of the night by 
the excitements of the morning, but this spectacle filled 
him with deep pity. He shed tears, and shedding tears 
re-entered the imperial abode. 

Murad, on his arrival at the Dolma-Baghtché went 
through the ceremony of dza¢, equivalent to the hand- 
kissing of European monarchies. The same name is still 
applied to the same ceremony at the Spanish court, and to 
official receptions in the South American republics of Span- 
ish origin. The levee was altogether informal, — more like 
a presidential reception at the White House than a court 
held by the representative of the dynasty of Othman; and 
Murad was well pleased to see court etiquette and dignity 
disappear. The next day he put forth his first proclama: 


216 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


tion, announcing a policy of reform; he had himself drawn 
up the first draft, which was by no means approved by his 
advisers, and the document as it appeared was very far 
from expressing his views. 

‘On Friday, June 2, 1876, took place his first se/amick. 
Ill or well, a sultan is obliged to go publicly to prayers 
each Friday in the mosque. This ceremony is called the 
selamick. If it be omitted for two weeks the empire, 
according to Mussulman belief, is in the greatest danger. 
The national prosperity depends upon these public prayers 
of the Commander of the Faithful. 

Another ceremony ought to have taken place that day, 
equivalent to the Christian ceremony of coronation ; but the 
officer whose hereditary right it was to gird the sultan with 
the sword of Othman in the mosque of Eyoub, was unfor- 
tunately absent in Asia Minor. He was summoned by 
telegraph, but did not arrive in time to accomplish his duty 
on that Friday. Week after week he waited in Constantt- 
nople, but the important rite could never on any succeeding 
Friday be performed. Perhaps, had Sultan Murad been 
solemnly girt with the sword of sovereignty, there might have 
been more hesitation in setting him aside. 

On the triumphal day of his first se/amzck he rode smiling 
and happy to the mosque of St. Sophia; by a strange 
coincidence it was the feast-day of Saint Constantine. The 
enthusiasm of the multitude was excessive. He was saluted 
as “the called for,” “the desired,” “the beloved.”  Softas 
raised Korans in their hands; women flung flowers in his 
path. Several times the Greeks tried to take the horses 
from his carriage. Forgetting the restraints of Oriental 
etiquette, Murad bowed to right and left like Western 
sovereigns. 

On his return home the seraskier was announced. The 
sight of Hussein Avni had been painful to the sultan ever 
since the night of his accession. 

After a military salute the minister grimly observed that 
a wise and venerable custom forbade sultans to respond to 


FOUR SULTANS. 217 


the acclamations of a multitude. Already, under pretext 
of imaginary conspiracies, Hussein Avni was keeping the 
palace guarded by his soldiers, and was refusing admittance 
to the sultan’s oldest and most intimate friends. He him- 
self slept for three nights in the palace, and the unfortunate 
prince, so long a prisoner during his uncle’s reign, found 
himself in closer captivity than ever. 

This was ill calculated to calm his nerves, already un- 
strung by his terrors on the night of his accession. His 
physician, a true Dr. Sangrado, prescribed copious bleeding, 
the most mistaken treatment for a man in his condition. 

On the morning of Saturday, July 3, the new sultan held’ 
his first council. His ministers were Ruchdi, Midhat, 
Ahmet Kaiserli, Hairullah, and Hussein Avni. It soon 
appeared that their views, especially in the great matter 
of public instruction, differed essentially from those of 
the reforming sultan. Feverish, excited, and discouraged, 
Murad left the council, and the next day he received news 
of the unhappy fate of Abdul Aziz. 

That dethroned prince had been removed to the ancient 
palace of Top Kapou, whence he addressed a letter to 
Sultan Murad on the second day after his deposition : — 


“Next to my trust in God, my hope is in your Majesty. I 
congratulate you on your accession, and I regret I could not 
serve the nation as it desired to be served. I trust your Majesty 
will not forget that I laid the foundation of those means that 
will preserve the empire and protect its honor. I call your 
attention to the fact that soldiers armed by my own hand have 
placed me in this situation. As I have always had the merit of 
being ready to help those who were in distress, I implore you to 
let me be removed from the melancholy and narrow residence 
in which I find myself, and to assign me a more suitable place 
of abode. I congratulate you that the power has now passed 
into the family of Abdul Medjid.” 


This letter was in the ex-sultan’s own handwriting. It 
was written with red ink, such as in Turkey is only used by 
sultans. Ina postscript he begs his successor to send him 


218 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


twenty thousand Turkish pounds which he had left behind 
him. 

Murad’s reply was likewise an autograph. In most suit- 
able terms it tried to calm, console, and reassure his 
uncle, and he gave orders at once that he should be trans- 
ferred to that wing of the palace of Tcheragan that he him- 
self had formerly inhabited. But Hussein Avni put off the 
removal for three days, under various pretexts, really be- 
cause he wished the new sultan to understand thoroughly 
that his orders must be subject to his own control. 

At last, when the sevaskier could no longer refuse obedi- 
ence to the reiterated commands of his master, backed by 
the remonstrances of other members of the cabinet, he 
ordered Abdul Aziz and his family to be transferred from 
Top Kapou to Tcheragan. But he would do nothing to 
discover and restore the twenty thousand pounds that the 
ex-sultan had left behind him. 

The new residence of Abdul Aziz was guarded by three 
lines of soldiers, and he was desired to confine himself to 
his own rooms. Without paying any regard to these orders, 
Abdul Aziz went out at once upon the terrace that over- 
looks the Bosphorus, and proceeded to walk up and down 
there. The sentry on duty requested him to go indoors. 
“Rascal! who am I?” cried the ex-sultan. ‘“ Abdul Aziz 
Effendi,’’ was the answer. 

This curtailment of his titles highly exasperated the de- 
throned sultan, and the sentry, uncertain what to do, went 
in search of his colonel. That officer, approaching the ex- 
sultan, remarked that he had better avoid the night air. 
This interference still further exasperated Abdul Aziz, who, 
drawing a small revolver from his breast, fired at the colonel. 
The officer fortunately was bowing at that moment, and 
the ball passed over his head. He drew back, and brought 
up a party of soldiers. Seeing these the captive monarch 
turned away, and went back into the palace; but not being 
able to sleep, he came forth again in the dark, and wan- 
dered unmolested in the gardens and on the esplanade, 
still guarded by the soldiers. 


FOUR SULTANS. 219 


In his agitation he talked aloud, and was heard saying, 
“ Have I no one to defend me? Where are the men I have 
loaded with favors and kindness? Where are my sons? 
To one I gave my army, to the other my navy. Where 
are your regiments? Where are your ironclads? Why does 
not that noble vessel I see yonder blow up my enemies with 
its mighty cannon?” 

When day broke his frenzy gave way to utter prostration. 
Sometimes in a tone of command he gave orders to his fleet, 
or broke out into reproaches addressed to Hussein Avni. 
Sometimes he resumed his dignity, called for his ministers, 
and questioned them as if they had been present. 

Toward evening an aide-de-camp arrived to request him 
to give up his revolver. Abdul Aziz was himself at that 
moment, and he said, with irony: ‘ What for? Why does 
my dear nephew want my revolver?” “He is afraid your 
Majesty might wound yourself.” ‘Take it, then, out of my 
bosom.” “No man may place his hand upon the person 
of your Majesty. Will you be pleased to give it me 
yourself? ”’ 

Abdul Aziz drew the revolver from its hiding-place, and 
gave it to the aide-de-camp, who, saluting most respectfully, 
was about to retire, when the sultan called him back again. 
“ Fool!’ he exclaimed, “why do you take the pistol, and 
leave hanging on the wall my sword and dagger?” “TI have 
no orders concerning anything but the pistol,’ replied the 
messenger. But a few hours after the household of the 
ex-sultan removed the weapons. 

The vaide and some other women of the harem spent 
all Saturday with Abdul Aziz endeavoring to calm and com- 
fort him. They succeeded in producing some effect, but 
during the night, in which he could not sleep, he became 
greatly agitated. Once he broke out fiercely against the 
valide, who was sitting beside him. “It is you,” he cried, 
“you, you vile creature, who are the cause of my misfor- 
tunes.”’ Was he alluding to his mother’s intrigues, or to 
the evil education she had given him? After this he strode 


220 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


_ wildly up and down the hall, with many windows overlooking 
the Bosphorus, stopping from time to time to gaze upon its 
noble waters, and growing calmer as his eyes rested on the 
glorious scene. At sunrise, in an’ armchair, he fell asleep. 
He woke about eight o’clock, and sent for his reader, whom 
he ordered to read to him the Turkish papers. After listen- 
ing to these for half an hour, he turned calmly to Faker Bey, 
his favorite chamberlain, and ordered him to bring him a 
small looking-glass, and a pair of scissors, as he wished to 
trim his beard. 

The chamberlain went and told the vaZ@de, who gave him 
the scissors. ‘They were a small pair with sharp points used 
for embroidery. ‘Now leave me by myself,” said Abdul 
Aziz. He was accustomed to shut himself up alone when 
dressing or trimming his hair. 

A few minutes after the chamberlain left him, some of 
his women peeped at him through a window in an opposite 
wall, and saw him cutting his beard, and apparently absorbed 
in the occupation. 

Sitting on a chair near a window which commands one of 
the finest sea views in the world, Abdul Aziz with his right 
hand must have severed an artery in his left arm, and then 
must have used the weakened left hand to serve the right 
arm in the same way. It is hardly to be supposed he had 
ever heard of Seneca, but he imitated the great suicide un- 
consciously, dying with equal courage and with less parade. 
Weakened by loss of blood, he slipped from his chair upon 
the floor. The noise of his fall was heard by some of his 
women. ‘They gave the alarm to the vafde. Already a 
stream of blood was trickling from beneath the door of his 
apartment, which was fastened on the inside. It was forced 
open, and Abdul Aziz was found still alive. He was able 
to say to his mother, ‘I have killed myself,” and in a few 
moments expired. It was nine o’clock in the morning. 
Two physicians were already in the house; they hastened 
to the spot, but could only declare that the dethroned prince 
was dead. Loud wails arose from his bereaved mother and 


FOUR SULTANS. 221 


his women. Hussein Avni hastened to the palace. He 
instantly ordered the body to be brought down to the lower 
floor. There it was laid, all bloody, on the pavement. His 
next care was to hold an informal inquest, — to examine the 
valide, and to take other testimony. He also gave orders 
to call in at once the seventeen chief physicians of Con- 
stantinople, including those attached to the British and 
Austrian embassies. All came immediately, and by eleven 
o’clock had drawn up a paper which they all signed. It 
contained these paragraphs : — 


I. The death of Sultan Abdul Aziz is due to loss of blood* fc 


caused by severance of veins in the left arm. 

II]. The instrument shown us is capable of having pro- 
duced these wounds. 

III. The direction of the wounds and the nature of the 
instrument convince us that it was a suicide. 

At the word “ suicide” all Europe smiled incredulously. 
The medical journals of London and Paris expressed grave 
doubts upon the subject. A paper in the “ Lancet” 
brought out Dr. Dickson, the physician to the English 
embassy at Constantinople, who had the reputation of be- 
ing a good physician and an honest man. He acknowl- 
edged that, when first sent for to assist in the post mortem, 
his expectation had been that he should behold the victim 
of a murder. ‘“ It was not until we had thoroughly exam- 
ined the facts brought before us,” he concludes, “ that I 
became convinced that the death of Abdul Aziz was by his 
own hand, as is stated in the report of the physicians.” 


But for some time the public impression in Constan-) 


tinople and in Pera was that the case was one of murder. 


It was said that early in the morning Hussein Avni, aided | 
by Redif Pasha, had committed the crime, and that they 


had slain two victims, —the ex-sultan and his third wife, 
the sister or near kinswoman of Hassan, the Circassian, 
who had lost her life attempting to defend her husband 
and sovereign. This romance may make a future plot for 
a sensational novel; but in sober truth the Circassian wife 


222 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


of Abdul Aziz lay dying of consumption; and her end, 
which was indeed hastened by her grief, did not take place 
till some days afterward. 

Murad himself believed that Hussein Avni was his uncle’s 
murderer. The story was told him without any precautions, 
and in the excited state of his nervous system it had the 
worst effect upon him. ‘They have covered me with 
shame!” he cried. ‘I promised him his life! Those 
wretches have murdered him! How horrible! How 
horrible !”’ 

His excitement brought on an attack of frenzy. His 
medical attendant was wholly incompetent to deal with the 
case judiciously. /It virtually brought to its close a reign 
which, though it lasted three months and one day, accord- 
| ing to history, was limited to six days’ actual sovereignty. 
| When Abdul Aziz raised his hand against his life, he slew 
_ two sultans. His madness was the cause of his nephew’s 
\loss of reason. Abdul Aziz had indeed shown previous 
signs of insanity. In 1862 his furious conduct had so much 
alarmed Mehemet Ali Pasha, his brother-in-law, that he one 
day sent in haste for Dr. Mongeri, director of the insane 
hospital at Scutari, who prescribed sedatives, change of air, 
and frequent yachting. 

According to Mohammedan law, a dead body must be 
buried before sunset. The remains of Abdul Aziz were 
therefore washed, perfumed, and wrapped in a shroud im- 
mediately after the departure of the physicians. ‘They were 
then placed in a steamboat, and taken to the Sanctuary of 
the Mantle of the Prophet at Top Kapou. Here the fune- 
ral services took place in the presence of almost all the 
ministers and certain other official personages. The body 
was then borne to the splendid mausoleum of Sultan Mah- 
moud, where father and son lie side by side. 

Fully persuaded that his uncle Abdul Aziz had _ been 
murdered by the war minister Hussein Avni, Sultan Murad, 
during the fatal Sunday, June 4, 1876, spoke of the event 
again and again with horror. Sometimes he grew wild with 


FOUR SULTANS. 223 


indignation, sometimes he wept, sometimes he sat in melan- 
choly silence, from which no one could rouse him. None 
of his European friends were suffered to approach him at 
this crisis. He was left to the care of an incompetent 
physician and an ignorant, weak-minded vaiae. 

,~ His reign was now over. Hussein Avni, the head of 

_ the conspiracy that had placed him on his father’s throne, 

\_now governed in his stead. The official organ continued 
to inform the public each day that his Majesty had trans- 
acted business with his ministers or his grand vizier; but 
he was no longer capable of attending to affairs. He 
ceased to care for food; he talked wildly to himself. 
Sometimes he walked restlessly until exhausted ; sometimes 
no persuasion could arouse him. Yet he had lucid inter- 
vals, when he would cry: “I will give in my resignation as 
sultan! Let me find an asylum in France or Italy. Let my 
successor be called to the throne.” 

Such was his condition for ten days. At the end of that 
time a dreadful tragedy cut short the career of the powerful 
dictator, Hussein Avni. 

Hassan Bey, brother or cousin of the fair Circassian, the 
best beloved wife of Abdul Aziz, belonged to the indomi- 
table race of Caucasian mountaineers, whom the Russian 
government expatriated, sending about five thousand of 
them over the frontier, to find an asylum in Turkey. 
Hassan’s father had been Ismail Bey, a noted chief, who as 
head of a small colony in Roumelia contrived to prosper 
in spite of the hardships which beset his fellow exiles. He 
was sufficiently well off to send his son Hassan to the Military 
Academy, which he quitted with the grade of lieutenant. 
A brilliant future seemed in store for this young man, whose 
near relative already occupied an important position in the 
sultan’s harem, being mother to his third son, Prince 
Mehemet Selim Effendi. Hassan rose rapidly in his pro- 
fession. In a few months he was made a captain, and 
then aide-de-camp to Prince Yussef Izzeddin. His ad- 
vancement was due to influence; for as a scholar he had 


224 RUSSIA AND TUREEVYIN THE XIX CENTURY. 


never been distinguished, and he was a very insubordinate 
and indifferent soldier. Though a married man, his life 
was disorderly. Every night he might be seen in the dis- 
reputable singing-gardens of Pera, gambling and drinking 
in Jow company. Indeed his reputation was so bad that 
suspicion rested on him as the probable murderer of two 
disreputable Armenian women. His tall figure and his 
martial bearing made him everywhere conspicuous. But 
his high cheek bones showed the Tartar blood in his veins, 
and his stern, cruel look, rough manners, and quarrelsome 
disposition did not dispose people in his favor, though they 
treated with respect the sultan’s brother-in-law. 

After the coup d’état all aides-de-camp of the court of 
Abdul Aziz were ordered to report themselves in garrison 
towns in Asia. Bagdad was assigned to Hassan, who, how- 
ever, continued to linger in his old haunts, openly accusing 
the seraskier of regicide. 

For this he was put under arrest. The next day, June 
11, the young widow of Abdul Aziz died. On the 15th 
Hassan declared himself humble and penitent, and promised 
to set out the next day for Bagdad. On giving this promise 
he was set at liberty. 

That evening he presented himself at the residence of 
Hussein Avni, and was informed that his Highness had gone 
to dine with Midhat Pasha, at whose house after dinner a 
cabinet council was to be held. He next crossed the 
Golden Horn in a caigue, and entered a restaurant, where 
he tossed off several glasses of ~akz. After this he made 
his way to the house of Midhat Pasha, —a mansion stand- 
ing in a garden exposed to public view. On the ground- 
floor was a large vestibule, on which opened the servants’ 
rooms and offices; above were the reception-rooms, one 
looking toward the sea, the other toward Constantinople. 
The ministers were assembled in the one overlooking the 
city, where a chandelier with forty lighted candles hung over 
an oval table, on which lay handsomely bound French 
books. The furniture consisted of sofas placed in each cor- 


FOUR SULTANS. 225 


ner of the apartment, and large armchairs covered with red 
silk-damask in the most modern style. The other saloon 
(empty at the moment) was larger. It had blue silk fur- 
niture, and doors leading into the harem. It was lighted 
by two chandeliers, whose soft light fell through folding- 
doors into the red reception-room. 

The ministers present were: Midhat; Ruchdi, the grand 
vizier; Husseia Avni, minister of war; Ahmed Kaiserli, 
minister of naval affairs; Raschid Pasha, minister of foreign 
affairs ; four other members of the cabinet, and an ex-sheref 
of Mecca. Besides these there were two other high 
officials, Mahmoud Bey and Said, who was secretary to the 
grand vizier, — twelve in all. They had begun business 
about ten o’clock, but had paused for half an hour to eat 
ices, and partake of other refreshments. The council was 
going on again when an unbidden guest appeared among 
them. 

At half-past ten Hassan Bey had presented himself in 
the vestibule. An aide-de-camp asked him what he wanted. 
*T leave for Bagdad to-morrow morning,’’ was the answer ; 
“and want to make an important communication to his 
Highness the seraskier.” 

He was invited to sit down, and refresh himself, and 
await the rising of the council. He preferred, however, to 
walk up and down the hall, where some of the aides-de- 
camp were asleep, and some engaged in card-playing. By 
degrees they ceased to notice him, and he quietly passed 
up the stairs; in an antechamber at the head of the stair- 
case he found the grand vizier’s servant, and two footmen 
of Midhat Pasha. Addressing the former he said that he was 
anxious to speak to the seraskier. The man politely offered 
to go below and send up a servant of Hussein Avni’s. 

When he departed Hassan half opened the door of the 
reception-room. “It is forbidden!” cried the servants. 
But Hassan had had time to see how the guests were dis- 
tributed. The grand vizier was on a sofa near a window 
talking to the seraskier, who was seated at his ease in an 

TS 


226 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


armchair. Near them were Ahmed, Kaiserli, Raschid, and 
another. Nearer to the door on the same side of the room 
was Midhat, with the secretary and Mahmoud Bey, leaning 
over a small table on which were writing materials. ‘The 
other side of the room to the left was occupied by the 
other ministers. 

In a few moments, without heeding the prohibition of the 
servants in the anteroom, Hassan a second time opened 
the door and entered, wrapped in his military cloak, with 
his martial stride. He made his salutation in a grave, 
respectful manner. Then drawing a revolver from his 
sleeve, he cried, “ Sevaskzer, do not stir!” and pointed his 
pistol at Hussein~Avni. The weapon went off. What next 
passed it is difficult to describe, all present having been too 
excited to recall particulars. Almost all rushed in a body 
to the blue reception-room, but Kaiserli sprang to his feet, 
and seized the murderer. Hassan, however, freed himself, 
and struck him with a dagger in the face. Meantime 
Hussein Avni, who had been shot in the breast, had just 
strength to reach the door. Hassan ran after him and 
plunged the poniard into his stomach, making repeated 
wounds. ‘There remained in the red room only one minis- 
ter, —the minister for foreign affairs, Raschid Pasha, who 
had fainted in his chair. Hassan, disregarding him, rushed 
to the door of the blue room, crying, “ Kaiserli! Kaiserli!”’ 
Then he fired into the folding-doors. He evidently no 
longer knew what he was doing. Seizing an armchair he 
flung it against the chandelier, and with a lighted candle 
that dropped upon the floor he tried to set fire to the cur- 
tains. At this moment a brave young Anatolian page of 
Midhat’s, a lad of singular beauty, rushed into the rocm. 
He at once threw his dagger at the head of the murderer, 
wounded him slightly and tried to pinion his arms. But 
Hassan, shaking himself free, stretched him dead at his 
feet. He then turned on Raschid Pasha, and fired through 
his skull; he died without having recovered from his 
fainting-fit. 


FOUR SULTANS. 227 


Nearly half an hour had thus passed, and one man 
remained master of the battle-field in a house crowded with 
others. 

The ministers, supposing that they were attacked by a 
band of brigands, intrenched themselves in the blue 
reception-room, waiting for succor, which a servant was 
sent through the garden to obtain. But that no servant 
but the brave young page should have come to their assist- 
ance seems very singular. It could not have been from 
cowardice, for no people are braver than the Turks. They 
probably believed that the blow was struck by order of the 
government, and dared not interfere with an accredited 
official. 

Fortunately, near Midhat’s house was a post of safiichs, 
military police. They reached the scene of blood, some- 
what leisurely, about midnight, and their officers —a major 
and a lieutenant — summoned Hassan to surrender. He 
half opened the door and fired twice, wounding both of 
them. Their men, being then reinforced by a picket of 
soldiers from the war-office, broke in the door, and, notwith- 
standing a fierce resistance, overpowered Hassan. In the 
struggle an aide-de-camp of the grand vizier lost his life. 

Mohammedan justice is speedy. Hardly six hours elapsed 
between the murderer’s fourfold crime.and_his..execution. 
After a brief examination, in which he said that he was 
sorry for Raschid’s death, and for that of the brave young 
Anatolian, he was hung up to a tree in an open space before 
the seraskiat, his face bare, but his body wrapped in a kind 
of white shroud, with a writing on his breast describing his 
crime and its punishment. He remained hanging until 
sunset. 

His victims were buried the same day. No one regretted 
Hussein Avni; and yet at that crisis the life of a general so 
energetic and so stern might have been of great service to 
the Ottoman Empire. 

Raschid was a man of a very different spirit, — timid, 
prudent, and reserved. He had been educated in France, 


228 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


and spoke French like a Frenchman. He seemed made 
for an ambassador. He was, besides, strictly honest. He 
was in his forty-seventh year. Hassan, his murderer, was 
twenty-five. 

“For more than two months afterward the country was 
governed by a triumvirate, — Midhat, the grand vizier, and 
Hairullah, the shezk-ul-[slam. These continued to de- 

*ceive the public as to the true condition of Sultan Murad. 
“Tt was given out that he had had a sharp attack of illness, 
that he suffered from fever and from several boils. Every 
Friday he went to public prayers in the mosque, but he 
proceeded thither in a caigue or a close carriage. “It is 
because of his boil that he always hides his face,’’ said 
some; but others answered, ‘“‘ There is something worse 
than.a boil.’” At that time the whole Turkish Empire was 
in commotion, and needed a strong hand to control both 
\ its arms and its diplomacy. The wholesale massacre of 
\Christians in southern Bulgaria had roused the indignation 
of all Europe. Bosnia and Herzegovina were in open 
insurrection ; Servia and Montenegro, assisted by Russian 
officers, were at open war with the Porte ; and the Russians 
were massing troops on the frontier of Roumania. General 
Ignatieff threatened to withdraw the Russian embassy from 
Constantinople until a sane sovereign should occupy the 
_throne. Abdul Hamid, Murad’s next brother and presump- 
tive heir, was asked if he would undertake the regency. 
He replied that a regency was not recognized by the law 
of the Prophet, but that he would accept the throne if quite 
convinced that his brother was incurably insane. After this 
Dr. Liedersdorf was sent for from Vienna. He was the 
director of an insane hospital in that city, and had been 
already summoned to attend other crowned heads. He 
wholly disapproved the lowering treatment of Dr. Capoleone, 
recommended salt bathing and yachting, and far from con- 
sidering the case hopeless is reported to have said in 
private: “If I had Sultan Murad under my own care in 
Vienna I would have him all right in six weeks.” 


FOUR SULTANS. 229 


This opinion was not what had been looked for, nor was 
it satisfactory. Indeed after improving under the new 
treatment Murad suffered a relapse, his nervous system 
being shaken by the thunders of a salute from the great 
guns of his own iron-clads as he was passing them in a 
caigue on his way to the mosque. But he could not be set 
aside without the approbation of the shezk-ul-l/slam, who 
after a little hesitation issued the following fefva : — 


\ —s- Question. If the Commander of the Faithful be attacked by 
_ mental insanity, and if the objects for which he holds his func- 
tions cannot be attained in consequence, may he be deposed? 
Answer. Yes. 
Written by the humble Hassan Hairullah, on whom may 
God send peace. 


I On Thursday, therefore, Sept. 1, 1876, Murad V. was 
formally deposed ; Sultan Abdul Hamid II. was proclaimed, 
and the next day he was girt with the sword of Othman in 
the mosque of Eyoub. 

Murad was unconscious at the time. His mother, unlike 
the savage Kurdish mother of Abdul Aziz, submitted to the 
change with a good grace. She was complimented by a 
promise that she should suffer no loss of dignity, but that 
she should be the adopted vafde of the new sultan. Dr. 
Capoleone, in whom she had great confidence, assured her 
that her son’s malady was incurable, and that his days were 
numbered. 

Abdul Hamid had had ill-health in his youth, and had 
received little instruction. From a young Belgian seam- 
stress, Flora Cordier, whom he converted to Mohammedan- 
ism, and placed in his harem, he had acquired some slight 
acquaintance with French, but he showed little of Murad’s 
eager love for knowledge. Before his accession he did not? 
care for much intercourse with foreigners, nor did he ever 
give ear to Young Turkey’s liberal ideas. He was very fond 
of agriculture, and during the reign of Abdul Aziz had_ 
amused himself by cultivating a model farm. The softas 


230 RUSSIA AND TOUKKEVY IN THE XIX?S CENTURY. 


and wlemas flocked around him. He was well versed in 
the Koran, and loved disputations in theology. To his 
mother, an Armenian from Georgia, he owes a quality very 
rare in the family of Othman, —the spirit of economy. He 
never exceeded his income before he came to the throne, 
and even laid by money. 

At first he was disposed to treat his brother Murad with 
great consideration. “If his reign had only lasted a few 
years,” he said in his speech after his inauguration, “I 
should have had the example of his virtues to walk by.” 
But it soon appeared that the existence of a dethroned 
sovereign, —a state of things unparalleled in Turkish his- 
tory, — gave his successor an uneasy throne. 

Murad was rigidly secluded, and has been so up to the 
present time. No European friend was allowed to visit — 
him ; even his kinsfolk were denied access to him; and it 
was soon understood in his household that to acknowledge 
he was better was looked upon as a sort of treason to the 
brother who occupied the throne. 

The va&de soon associated with Dr. Capoleone a dervish, 
whose charms and verses from the Koran were probably a 
great improvement upon the Italian’s leeches and hot water. 
But Murad in his first lucid interval refused to have any- 
thing to do with either of them, and from that time con- 
tinued to improve. It was hard, however, to emancipate 
himself from the vadde’s fancies. She continued to fumi- 
gate his rooms, and to go through various barbarous and 
disgusting ceremonies to drive out, as she asserted, the 
demons and afrites. 

His health might possibly have been restored by a jour- 
ney to western Europe, but it is a great affair of state for 
any member of the house of Othman to quit the soil of the 
Ottoman Empire, — the law of the Prophet forbids it; and 
when in 1867 Abdul Aziz went to the Paris Exposition he 
was obliged to compromise by having the soles of his shoes 
daily powdered with dust from his own dominions. 

About a twelvemonth after Murad’s deposition a French- 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID JI. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URBANA 


FOUR SULTANS. 231 


man succeeded in passing three days with him in the palace 
of Tcheragan, before he was removed to the old seraglio of 
Top Kapou. He found the ex-sultan to all appearance in 
good health, and exhibiting, so far as he could see, no sign 
of mental derangement ; but his beard and hair, which were 
coal black on his accession, had become white as snow. 
Seeing his visitor’s astonishment, Murad remarked: “I sup- 
pose you think that my hair has grown suddenly white from 
grief, like Marie Antoinette’s, or that it has been blanched 
by the severity of my captivity. Not so. Some months 
before my uncle’s death I found myself getting a little gray. 
I was rather pleased with my white hairs, but my mother 
objected to them. Not long before my elevation to the 
throne she purchased in Pera some marvellous hair-dye, 
with which’ she rubbed my head several times. The gray 
hairs disappeared, but shortly after I became subject to 
intense headaches, which Capoleone attributed to another 
cause, but Dr. Liedersdorf said they came from nitrate of 
silver, and such ingredients in the hair-dye. Since I have 
given it up my hair has grown snow-white, but the head- 
aches have disappeared,”’ 


CHAPTERS Xx: 
THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877.— GENERAL SKOBELEFF. 


ie order to understand the attitude of western Europe 

in reference to the Eastern Question, we must keep in 
mind the system of European police which maintains what 
is called the balance of power. The United States are 
happily preserved: thus far, by their traditional policy, from 
taking any part in this matter, but more or less it concerns 
not only the continent of Europe, but the whole Eastern 
Hemisphere. 

‘By the Congress of Vienna in 1815 it was laid down as 
a law of Europe that there were five Great Powers, namely : 
England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Of these, 
Prussia was then the most feeble. There were seven second- 
rate powers, namely: Spain, Portugal, Naples, Turkey, Hol- 
land, Sweden, and Denmark. Besides these there were 
third-rate States more or less dependent on the five Great 
Powers. 
~ It was agreed that no one of the five Great Powers was 
to aggrandize itself (except as regarded colonies) without 
giving the other four a right to take something to their own 
i If any two Great Powers went to war the other three 
had liberty to negotiate, or if need were, to intervene by 
force of arms, provided there was a chance that the balance 
‘of power would be disturbed. 

Each Great Power had certain minor Powers under its 
protection. England, for instance, had Portugal; Austria 
had the Italian princes; Prussia, the northern States of 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 233 


Germany. It was much like the system in an English 
public school, where a boy in the sixth form has one or 
more little boys under his protection. 

But there was one country that refused to come under 
such protection, or to accept the obligations protection 
would have laid upon it. That country was Turkey. More \ 
than half the population of Turkey in Europe was Christian. 
Russia claimed a right to protect Greek Christians, and | 
England claimed the right to uphold the Turkish govern- | 
ment. From 1821 to the present day this question has 
been the most troublesome one in European international 
politics. It has given rise to three great wars: that of 1828, 
terminated by the Treaty of Adrianople ; the Crimean War 
in 1855 and 1856, terminated by the Treaty of Paris; and 
the war of 1877 and 1878, when the police policy of Buteped 
was put-upon a new “footing by Beaconsfield and Bismarck 
at the Congress of Berlin. 

After the Crimean War, Turkey, in acknowledgment of 
French and English help, had to make great concessions. 
Her two Danubian provinces, Moldavia and Wallachia 
(wedged in between Russia and Hungary), were made 
autonomous ; that is, they had a prince of their own and 
were only nominally a part of Turkey. 

South of the Danube were two provinces, Servia and 
Bulgaria, with the river for their northern boundary. Servia 
secured autonomy under her own prince, but Turkey kept 
a garrison in the strong fortress of Belgrade, and received 
tribute. 

To the west of part of Bulgaria, and south of Servia, were 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the little Black Moun- 
tain principality (Montenegro) lying between Bosnia and 
Albania, 

The chain of mountains called the Balkans ran through 
what in 1876 was called Bulgaria. It now separates the 
Bulgarian principality from southern Bulgaria, better known 
under its new name of Eastern Roumelia. 

The dance of death in 1875 was led off by Herzegovina. 


234 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


It began by local quarrels between peasants and a Turkish 
tax-collector. Besides a tithe tribute on everything pro- 
duced by agriculture, the Christian peasant had to pay 
poll-tax, land-tax, and a heavy tax upon his earnings, be- 
sides being subject to a strict corvée of forced labor on the 
public roads. Laws for the protection of the Christian 
population in Turkey have been repeatedly made and_pro- 
mulgated. After the Crimean War England and the French 
emperor insisted that a Aa¢t, or royal ordinance, should be 
issued giving equal civil rights to Christians and to Mussul- 
mans; but though such reforms were conceded to diplomacy, 
they remained entirely unenforced. Indeed, who can regu- 
late the local oppressions of the landlord and the tax- 
gatherer ? 

The result of these oppressions, and of the scorn and 
contempt with which Christians were treated by Moham- 
medans, was that in 1875 a general insurrection broke out 
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, when the leaders of the rising 
put forth a pathetic appeal to the Great Powers to come to 
their help in one of four ways: either to give them leave 
to fight their quarrel out with their oppressors; or to assign 
them some land to which they might all emigrate; or to 
form an autonomous State of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to 
be ruled by some foreign prince under the suzerainty of the 
sultan ; or lastly, to send foreign troops into their villages 
till the homes, honor, property, and religious liberty of 
Christians should be secured to them. 

I have not space to describe minutely all the oppressions 
from which eight millions of Christians in Turkey in Europe 
suffered. ‘These oppressions in Bulgaria by no means anni- 
hilated the prosperity of a very thriving population of 
Christians, but in Bosnia and Herzegovina their case was 
harder. The best way, perhaps, of giving some idea of the 
state of things will be to tell an anecdote taken from the 
note-book of a newspaper correspondent in 1875, and to 
give a copy of the usual official certificate issued to permit 
the burial of a Christian. 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 235 


“JT had,” says the correspondent, ‘‘a zaptzeh, or Turkish rural 
policeman, who accompanied me in many of my wanderings. 
The man was kind-hearted and gentle, and I saw many a kind 
act of his when he was with me, but it never occurred to him 
that it was wrong fora Turk to appropriate the property of a 
Bulgarian. One hot day, after a dusty ride we found ourselves 
on the top of a hill on the sides of which were vineyards full of 
fruit. Presently, as I sat on the ground, I found my zafptieh 
and the horses had disappeared. In vain I called; there was 
no response for some minutes, then he returned and beckoned 
me to follow him. To my amazement he had turned the horses 
loose to eat up the little vines, and had picked thirty or forty 
great bunches of grapes, which he was carefully stowing away 
in his saddle-bags, having reserved the best for me, and was 
preparing to ascend a peach tree, and to strip that also. When 
in imperfect Turkish I refused to participate in his act of 
robbery, I shall never forget the look of amazement with which 
he held up the grapes I had refused, gazed at them for a 
moment, then putting them into his saddle-bags mounted in 
solemn silence, and rode down the hill. It was an hour before 
he spoke, and then it was to express a fear that the heat of the 
sun had affected my head. ‘For,’ said he, ‘if the Chelleby 
Effendi would hire a cart we might go to that vineyard to- 
morrow, and take away as many grapes as we could sell for ten 
dollars!’ Now this man was one of the best of his class, as 
gentle as he was brave; but his education had taught him that 
what belonged to a Christian was his as a Moslem, and this 
idea had all his life been built up in him by what he saw 
around him.” 


‘‘ Had the Bulgarian proprietor,” adds the reviewer who 
relates this story, “resisted this spoiling of his goods, this 
kind and gentle policeman would probably have slain him 
without compunction, and would have considered any man 
a fool or a madman who had suggested that he had com- 
mitted a crime.” 

Here is the form of burial certificate which was given 
under Turkish rule when a Christian required interment : — 


‘‘We certify to the priest of the Church of Mary that the 
impure, putrid, stinking carcass of Sardeh, damned this day, 
may be concealed underground.” 


\ {i} { 


236 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Bosnia is a country divided from Servia by the river Drina, 
and from Herzegovina by a mountain chain. The population 
of both countries is Slavonic, like that of Servia. Turkish 
Croatia and Herzegovina would have bordered on the 
Adriatic but for the decision of the Congress of Vienna in 
1815, which gave Austria a narrow strip of territory running 
along the coast, and the beautiful Bay of Cattaro, which 
with her possession of Venice at that period gave her 
command of the northern part of the Adriatic Sea. 

By 1876 the revolt begun in Herzegovina was exciting 
the hopes and sympathy of the Christians in Bulgaria. At 
the close of that. year a hideous massacre of the Christian. 
population took place south of the Balkans. The indigna- 
‘tion of Europeans and Americans was roused to the highest 
pitch, and Russia prepared to invade Turkey on behalf of 
the Christian population. 

\ When Russia had finally subdued Circassia, the Circas- 
sians, who were Moslems and, unwilling to submit to a 
Christian yoke, were by the advice of England invited to 
take refuge in Turkey. ‘The sultan colonized them in his 
own dominions, especially in southern Bulgaria, | making 
them form small settlements or village communities. These 
people were cordially hated by the Christian peasantry ; 
endless quarrels went on between them. ‘The Circassians 
robbed; the Bulgarians retaliated. Among all the Chris- 
tian populations of the Porte there were none at that time 
so industrious, ingenious, artistic, and progressive as the 
Bulgarians. In spite of oppression, these qualities made 
them prosper. Carpets, embroidery in gold thread, silver 
filigree work, and vefoussé work were their chief industries. 
Politically and socially they made progress under great 
disadvantages, and they paid some attention to education. 

When Bosnia and Herzegovina revolted, and Servia 
went to war with Turkey, it was determined by the Porte 
to take away all arms from the Christians in Bulgaria, 
_and at the same time to arm, at the sultan’s expense, all 
_ the Circassians and other Moslems in the province, besides 


Ten 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 237 


bringing into it a large force of Kurds, Bashi-Bazouks, and 
Asiatic barbarians. 

Before long Salonika (the Thessalonica to which Saint 
Paul wrote two Epistles), a noble port on the #gean Sea, 
was the scene of a massacre which included two European 
consuls. This brought down an English fleet to threaten 
the place, and to demand reparation. But the Turkish gov- 
ernment was very soon satisfied that, whatever might take 
place, the cause of the Porte would not be deserted by 
England. At once thousands of Bashi-Bazouks and savage - 
Circassians were let loose on the unhappy Christian popu- — 
lation of southern Bulgaria.! More than one hundred towns | 
or villages in this part of Turkey were destroyed; men, 
women, and children were slaughtered, — not only slaugh- 
tered, but in many cases tortured. It was the massacre of: 
Scio, that had taken place fifty years before, over again. 
In one instance a large school of children were killed at 
once, and the bodies of the victims, togéther with the 
schoolhouse, were burned by the destroyers. // About forty 
thousand Bulgarians were thus massacred in the month of 
June, 1876.) Children made captives were sold in the large 
cities. Who can wonder at the passionate excitement that 
pervaded Russia on receipt of this intelligence ? 

Alexander II. was in the main a man of peace, but he 
took arms to insist on the fulfilment by the Porte of the 
Hatt-i-Heymin granted after the Crimean War, which gave 
protection and civil mghts to Christians. This Aa?¢t, as I 
have already said, had remained a dead letter, and possibly, 
as its provisions were in opposition, to all Mussulman feeling, 
it was out of the power of the sultan and his government 
to enforce them. 

Everywhere Russia was hailed by the Christians of Bul- 
garia as their deliverer. Their belief was that Russia, and 
she alone among all the nations of the earth, could feel for 
them and would help them. 
~The war the year before, when Servia attacked the Turks, 
had brought many Russian officers across the Danube as 


238 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


volunteers. ‘There were many also in Roumania, which 
although nominally under the suzerainty of the Porte, 
considered itself under the protection of Russia. 

The Russian armies marched therefore through Roumania, 
_and concentrated at Gourgievo, a Roumanian town on the 
left bank of the Danube. _|Before them lay the river, two miles 
wide, its course broken by a muddy islet near the Turkish 
shore. On this shore lay a Turkish army with strong re- 
doubts, and below these, also on the Turkish side, was the 
town of Rustchuk. There was also a strong Turkish fleet 
in the river. 

A story to be interesting should always have a hero, and 
the hero of this Turkish war was General Skobeleff. By 
following his history we shall obtain all the principal points 
of the war, which was a brief one, its actual operations only 
_ lasting from June, 1877, to February, 1878. 

Mikhail Dimitrivitch Skobeleff—the “white general,” 
as all called him, — the “ intelligible general,” as some of 
his soldiers named him, was, when the war opened, about 
thirty-three years old. 

As so much Russian literature is read at the present time, 
it is probably superfluous to explain the Russian system of 
nomenclature. A Russian has but one baptismal name, but 
as a middle name he always takes his father’s baptismal 
name with zvifch added to it. A woman does the same 
thing, but adds ovma. Servants in Russia, instead of ad- 
dressing their mistress as Ma’am or Madame, or even by 
her married name, would say: “ Here is a letter for you, 
Elisaveta Ivanovna,”’ or to their master, “Some one would 
like to see you, Alexander Vassilivitch.”’” It is in Russia as 
it was in Greece in the Homeric days, when it was not 
courteous to address a chief without adding his father’s 
name to his own. Agamemnon, in a crisis, warns Menelaus 
to give no offence by neglecting this piece of propriety. 

Skobeleff's father was therefore Dimitri Nicolaivitch 
Skobeleff, and the son became Mikhail Dimitrivitch. His 
great-grandfather was said to have been a Scottish immi- 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 239 


grant named Scobie; but he himself cared to go no farther 
back than his grandfather, a peasant, who went into the 
Russian army and rose to be a general. 

Skobeleff’s father was a gruff old gentleman, with a harsh 
voice. Many esteemed him miserly, but he was a brave 
and distinguished officer, and devotedly fond of his son, 
who delighted in playing boyish tricks on him. Both father 
and son were tall and very handsome. Mikhail Dimitrivitch 
indeed was six feet two. The old general placed his boy, 
who was too young to enter the army during the Crimean 
War, in the hands of a German tutor, who, if he implanted 
nothing else, inspired his pupil with a hatred for Germany. 
‘‘ He was an unjust, mean, rough fellow,’”’ said Skobeleff to 
a friend in after years. ‘I hated him as much as one 
human being can hate another. Once he struck me, 
—-a boy of thirteen, — in the presence of a girl whom I 
admired immensely, struck me without the slightest provo- 
cation on my part. ...I1 forgot what I was doing. I 
sprang upon him, seized him, and remained petrified. Do 
you know what that fellow tried to teach me? He taught 
that Germany was everything to Russia; that everything in 
Russia had been done by Germans, and that Russia must 
either obey Germany or perish. There was no universe, 
there was nothing but Germany. And I hated those things 
in my heart. My father dismissed the German, and I was 
sent to Paris, to a tutor named Girarde. What a contrast! 
I love Girardé — love him more than my own relations! 
He taught me to love my country. He showed me that 
there is nothing on earth higher than one’s country, and 
said that every citizen should carry his country’s name with 
pride. After having experienced a course of hard words, 
abuse, and blows, I now met with gentleness, attention, 
delicacy. I am deeply grateful to that man. He made 
me study, and instilled into me a love of science and of 
knowledge.’’? 


1 Much of this account of General Skobeleff is taken from a 
charming book by Alexander Verestchagin, “At Home and in 


240 &USSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


And this love of science and of knowledge was with Skobe- 
leff to his dying day. He always said that men must grow 
in knowledge till they die. Not only was he always increas- 
ing his own vast stores, but he was constantly trying to 
stimulate others. The young men under his influence he 
taught to acquire knowledge, and to enjoy it. He could 
speak five languages fluently. Wherever he went he could 
find time for new books and reviews ; he loved poetry and 
quoted it beautifully. 

After leaving Paris he went to a Russian University. He 
seems there to have indulged in a good deal of extrava- 
gance, so he was put into the army and sent to Turkestan. 
In Turkestan he acquired great credit, received the cross 
of Saint George, the highest reward of bravery, and was 
made a general. 

At one time in his career he outranked his father, and 
was delighted to tease the old gentleman by his official 
seniority. 

His successes in Turkestan made many men at St. 
Petersburg about the court jealous of him. When he 
joined the Russian forces at Gourgievo he was not at first 
given a command, but was attached to his father’s staff. 
There he was virtually in command. ‘The arrangement, 
however, was not destined to last long. Even the envious 
could not ignore his merits, and he soon became the favorite 
of the commander-in-chief, the Grand Duke Nicholas, the 
brother of the czar. 

The great strength of Skobeleff lay in his power over his 
private soldiers. Accustomed to abuse and _ blows, they 
found nothing of the.kind in Skobeleff, who would have no 
flogging in his division, and twice threatened to break 
officers (one of them a colonel) for striking their men. In 
other parts of the Russian army (except in the Cossack 


War.” Iam indebted also to an article in the “Fortnightly Review,” 
by a war correspondent, Mr. W. K. Rose, also to lives of Skobeleff, 
by Dantchenko and Novihoff, and to miscellaneous articles in French 
and English newspapers and reviews. 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 241 


regiments) blows from an officer were considered part of 
the discipline. Alexander Verestchagin relates that when 
he joined the Cossacks at Gourgievo he was cautioned at 
once by his brother officers to be civil to his men. 

Skobeleff was never weary of seeing that his soldiers were 
well-fed, warmly clothed, and comfortable. He was their 
comrade as well as their officer. Innumerable are the 
anecdotes told of the ways in which he gained their confi- 
dence and affection,—how he would take a wounded 
soldier beside him in his carriage, or fling his cloak over 
another as he lay upon the ground; or how he has been 
known to dismount from his white charger, and march with 
a weary regiment, reviving its spirits with gay talk as the 
men toiled on. To all suffering he was generous and full 
of sympathy. 

I said his soldiers called him “the intelligible general.” 
This was because he explained to them his orders. For 
example, when, early in June, 1877, they were to cross to an 
island in the Danube to support the boats which were laying 
torpedoes in the river, the following scene took place. The 
officers were on the point of proceeding with their men 
when Skobeleff stopped the infantry. “ Wait,” he said, 
“you must not go off like that; the soldier should always 
know where he is going, and why he is going there. The 
soldier who knows what he has to do, and understands the 
purpose of the expedition is a thousand times more valu- 
able than an unconscious instrument. The Cossacks I have 
already talked to. Good morning, my good fellows. Do 
you know where you are going?” “To Parapan, your 
Excellency./5 7) What for?’ “*To-sthrash? the’ Turks.” 
“That ’s. right. What’s your name?”  “ Ergoroff, your 
Excellency.” ‘ You are a smart fellow. I see that you 
will soon get the Saint George. Only we are not going: 
to thrash the Turks just yet. We have another job before: 
us just now. We want to cross the river, — do you under- 
stand?’ “Yes, your Excellency.” ‘‘ Mind you do. We have 
got tired sitting of here among the Moldavians, where we 

16 


242 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTIDCENTURY. 


can’t do anything without money. There is little work for 
soldiers here.” “ Exactly so, your Excellency.” “Well, 
we have come here to fight, but the enemy over yonder 
won’t come to meet us. He is too snug over there, so we 
must beat him out of it. Let us go and turn him out, my 
eagles!’ This was met with a cheer. “ But to turn him 
out we must first cross the river. That is where we shall 
catch it! As soon as we begin to cross over, the Turk, who 
is no fool, will set his monitors at our pontoons and our 
flotillas. You have seen how those monitors can puff and 
blow?” “Yes, your Excellency.” ‘He will try to drown 
us, but we are more cunning than he. We are going to put 
such mines in the river that he will be unable to pass them. 
As soon as he gets over one of these mines it will explode 
and blow him up. We mean to cross the river under his 
nose.” ‘ He is quite different from the others,” said the 
soldiers among themselves, “he is a clever general, and 
intelligible.” 

In June, 1877, when only a small detachment of the 
Russian army had crossed the Danube, and the pontoons 
which had transported them were being worked into a 
bridge, Skobeleff undertook to test if it were possible to 
swim cavalry across, by himself making the attempt. He 
pushed his white charger into the river, and here is an 
account of the scene, written by Mr. Rose, who watched him 
breathless from the bank, standing beside the rough old 
father : — 


“He wound his way down the scarped clay cliffs at Zirnitza, 
across a small bridge which spanned a creek, to the island of 
Ada, and then, entering the river, the gallant horse, guided by 
Skobeleff’s skilful hands made for the farther shore. . . . With 
his binocular the gray-haired father followed the progress of his 
son and his charger through the swift current. Then his arms 
began to shake, and his hands refused to hold the glasses to his 
eyes. He who had headed eight hundred troopers in a fierce 
onslaught upon five thousand Turks was unnerved by the 
sight of so venturesome a deed. Prince Tzeretleff, who was 
standing by his side noting the slow course of his comrade in 


THE TORKISH, WAR OF 1877, 243 


his unequal struggle with the moving waters, in response to the 
earnest appeals of the old general, reported every circumstance 
of the exciting adventure. At one time Skobeleff was forced 
to fling himself from his saddle and to swim beside his horse. 
Emotion choked the voice of the father as this was reported 
to him, and he exclaimed ever and anon, ‘Oh! my brave boy! 
Is he drowned yet?’ And when young Skobeleff touched the 
little shelving bay below Sistova in safety, a ringing cheer was 
given by the Russian soldiery who had witnessed the rash 
exploit, and the group which surrounded the gray-haired gen- 
eral, echoed his ‘ Thank God!’ as much for 4zs sake as for the 
sake of an undertaking almost unparalleled in its temerity.” 


When the passage of the Danube was made finally on the 
pontoon bridge, Skobeleff shouldered a musket like a 
private soldier and marched over with the men. 

He was put into command of a division; every officer 
under him was devoted to him. He treated them all when 
off duty as friends and comrades; but then every one of 
them was expected, when occasion came, to lay down his 
life as an example to his men. ‘“ Fear,’’ he has been heard 
to say, “must cease when a man reaches the grade of 
captain.” ; 

‘«‘Skobeleff’s friendship,’’ says Verestchagin, ‘meant 
responsibility and increased danger. The friend of 
Skobeleff was expected to follow his own example. When 
a stranger might be excused or pardoned, there was no 
mercy for a friend.” 

The army, having crossed the Danube, was in Bulgaria. 
The Turks retired before it. Plevna, on the high-road to the 
passes of the Balkans, was the strong place they had deter- 
mined to defend. There lay Osman Pasha with his gallant 
little army. ‘The works of defence (in which the Turks 
excel) were very strong. Three times the Russians at- 
tacked the place, and were repulsed, —twice in July, and 
the third time on the 11th of September. On this last oc- 
casion Skobeleff’s duty was to take a redoubt on a certain 
Green Hill, which he regarded as the key to the Turkish 
position. 


244. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


He always rode a white horse, and wore a white coat, 
that he might be conspicuous to his own men during a 
a battle. With the usual address to his soldiers, he de- 
spatched them to the redoubt. He knew well that he was 
sending numbers of them to death. They knew it, too; 
but they advanced right up to the Turkish cannon with 
unflinching bravery. One company, however, gave way. 
In their disorder they were encountered by Skobeleff on 
his: white charger. - ** Follow mre1 = hercned ; “twit 
show you how to thrash the Turks! Close up there! 
Follow me, my men! I will lead you myself. He who 
deserts me should be ashamed of himself! Now then, 
drummers, — look alive!” 7 

Meantime — for there was no quarter on either side — the 
Turks were seen.torturing the wounded before despatching 
them. This roused the spirit of the Russian soldiers. 
They pushed on with fury. -Probably no engagement was 
ever so bloody in proportion to the men engaged ; but 
Skobeleff's soldiers won the Green Hill and the redoubt, 
and planted two Russian flags upon it. All the Turks were 
driven out or slain. Then Skobeleff on his white horse 
(two that day were killed under him) started off to head- 
quarters to secure reinforcements. ‘The battle was going 
against the Russians in other places. 

“ Major Gortaloff, you will remain here in charge of the 
redoubt,” he said. “Can I depend on you? You must 
remain in this position at any price!” ‘I will remain or 
die, your Excellency!’ ‘ Possibly I shall be unable to send 
you any reinforcements. Give me your word that you will not 
leave the redoubt. ‘This is the key to the enemy’s position. 
Yonder they may not understand this yet. JI am going to 
convince them of it. Give me your word that you will not 
leave the redoubt.’’ ‘My honor is pledged. I will not 
leave this place alive.” The major raised his hand as if 
taking an oath. Skobeleff embraced him. ‘God help 
you! Remember, my men; there may be no reinforce- 
ments. Count only on yourselves. Farewell, heroes! ” 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877, 245 


But as he took his last glance at the finest troops of his 
division, he sighed. ‘‘Consecrated to death!” he said, 
and thundered down the hill. 

All his efforts at headquarters were in vain. He could 
not obtain a man to reinforce his position. He burst into 
tears. In vain he represented that the redoubt that he had 
won was the key of the position. ‘There was nothing for 
it but to draw off his men from the Green Hill, and retreat. 
The colonel of one of the regiments of Cossack infantry, 
however, without orders, put his men at Skobeleff’s disposal 
to cover the retreat of the heroes, and bring as many of them 
off safe as possible. 

“They must all die, — my heroes, my lions!”’ cried their 
commander, rising in his saddle, and raising his cap. The 
Turks were swarming again into the fortress, mounting its 
walls on a rampart of dead bodies. The little garrison, de- 
fending themselves with their bayonets, began to despair. 
At last, through the fog which that day obscured everything, 
they saw comrades coming to their assistance, — Skobeleff 
and the Cossacks who had volunteered to follow him. 
There seemed to be one line left, by which they could re- 
treat. ‘Will you order me to lead the men off by it?” 
said a lieutenant to the major. ‘We must save the flags,” 
replied the old officer. “Wait! some one is coming! It 
may be reinforcements. Can you see what itis?” <“ Yes 
—no! It is Skobeleff! But he has only one battalion 
with him. I think he wants to cover our retreat. With so 
small a force the Turks cannot be beaten off.” 

There was no hope. The old major gathered his men 
around him, and looked earnestly in their faces. ‘ Com- 
rades, go!”’ he said. ‘ Open your way with your .bayo- 
nets. This place can no longer be held. God bless you, 
my children! Forward!” And bowing his head, he 
reverently made the sign of the cross over his men. ‘And 
you, father?’’ they exclaimed. “I stay with our dead,” he 
answered. “Tell the general I have kept my word. Good- 
by, children! ’’ They watched him as they turned their 


246 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


heads in their retreat. They saw him standing on the 
rampart waving to them. Then the Turks rushed in, 
and surrounded him. ‘They saw the struggle. ‘They saw 
his body uplifted upon Turkish bayonets. 

An English war correspondent describes Skobeleff that 
evening as he turned from headquarters, when he could 
obtain no help for those he called his “lions.” ‘ He was 
in a fearful state of excitement and fury. His uniform was 
covered with mud and dirt; his sword was broken; his 
cross of Saint George was twisted round his shoulders ; his 
face was black with powder and smoke; his eyes haggard 
and bloodshot. He spoke ina hoarse whisper. I never 
before saw such a picture of battle as he presented.” 

“T have done my best,” he said in the hearing of another 
Englishman. ‘1 could dono more. I blame nobody. It 
is the will of God.” 

But Skobeleff never recovered from the suffering of that 
day. He had sacrificed his men to win the battle ; and the 
battle was not won. ‘“ Until the third battle of Plevna,” he 
said to a friend, “I was young; but I have come out of it 
an old man. Not, of course, physically or intellectually, 
but I feel as if years had elapsed since I conquered at 
Lovichska, and after that our defeat at Plevna. It is a 
nightmare that may tempt me to suicide. The recollec- 
tions of that place of slaughter are too terrible. I tell you 
honestly I sought death there. If I did not find it, it was 
not my own fault.” 

After the army retreated from Plevna, he retired for a 


~ week or two to Bucharest, the capital of Roumania. ‘There 


he met General Todleben going to the front. The two men 
were attracted to each other. ‘Todleben, the great engi- 
neer officer, who had planned and superintended, twenty- 
one years before, the defence of Sebastopol, was now going 
to plan works which should take Plevna, not by assault, but 
by starvation. 

By the middle of October, 1877, Skobeleff was back again 
at the seat of war with his division, about forty thousand 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877, 247 


men. Plevna was then closely invested, and he was in pos- 
session of formidable redoubts and a long line of trenches. 
The place to which his division was assigned was called 
“the works of Zelony Gory.” 

But he had no longer with him the “lions” and the 
‘“‘ eagles,” who had perished in September, and whose fate, 
so long as he lived, he so bitterly mourned. Half his force 
consisted now of new recruits, whom he had to train. 

On several occasions, when he observed them waver 
under fire, he rallied them, and marched them back where 
bullets were flying fast, and put them through their drill as 
on a parade ground ; after which he dismissed them to their 
work, and there was no more faltering. 

Akh Pasha, as the Turks called him —the White Gen- 
eral— went everywhere on his white horse in his white 
coat exposing himself. His soldiers believed him invulner- 
able. One wounded soldier solemnly assured a Sister of 
Mercy that he had seem the bullet that shattered his own 
arm pass through the body of his general. That general 
would make his own reconnoissances, his personal repre- 
sentations at headquarters, his personal inspections of 
everything, especially of all that concerned the food and 
comfort of his men; remonstrances were useless. And he 
was only twice wounded, on which occasions the wounds 
were slight, being severe contusions. ‘I must show my 
men how badly the Turks aim,” he said once when stand- 
ing as a target to the enemy. ‘I know howto cure him of 
exposing himself,” cried a soldier in the trenches to his 
comrades. ‘The first time he jumps up on the rampart 
above the trench let us all jump up after him.”” They did 
so, men and officers, and Skobeleff, who could not bear 
needlessly to expose his men, took the hint, and for once 
retired. 

On the heights of Zelony Gory he lived several weeks in 
the trenches. He forbade his soldiers to rise to salute him 
as he passed, saying he was constantly on his rounds, and it 
would wear them out unnecessarily. 


248 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


“T am going to get into an awful scrape at headquar- 
ters,” he said one day toa friend. “TI have been guilty of 
flagrant disobedience of orders. No one is permitted to 
pass out of Plevna, where Osman Pasha is anxious to get rid 
of useless mouths. ‘There came this morning half a dozen 
carts full of Bulgarian women and children into my camp, 
and I passed them on in safety. I shall catch it!” 
“‘ Perhaps,”’ said his friend, “‘ they won’t hear of it at head- 
quarters.” ‘Oh! but I reported it myself,’ was the quick 
answer. 

That same day a poor old Bulgarian woman escaping 
from Plevna, entered the Russian camp in another direc- 
tion. ‘The general commanding there ordered his Cossacks » 
to scourge her with whips back to the town. 

At last Osman Pasha was starved out and surrendered. 
As soon as the city fell Skobeleff was appointed its military 
governor. The Roumanians in the Russian army had 
already begun the plunder of the city. When Skobeleff 
remonstrated their officers replied: ‘‘We are the victors, 
and the victors have a right to the spoils.” ‘In the first 
place,’’ answered the general, ‘“‘we were never at war with 
the peaceable inhabitants of this place, and consequently 
cannot have conquered them. But, secondly, please 
acquaint your men that I shall have victors of this kind 
shot. Every man caught marauding shall be shot like a 
dog. Please bear this in mind. ‘There is another thing. 
You must not insult women. Such conduct is very humili- 
ating. Let me tell you that every such complaint will be 
investigated, and every case of outrage punished.” 

A French gentleman who was at Plevna with the officers 
of the commander-in-chief’s staff, speaks thus of what he 
saw of Skobeleff: ‘He is a magnificent looking soldier, 
almost as tall as the emperor; so that he has to stoop to 
enter any tent, and when he is in he cannot stand upright. 
He has a fine head, keen blue eyes, commanding forehead, 
and long whiskers and moustache, fine, soft, and golden. 
He is careful in his dress, especially when going into action, 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 249 


and dainty in his personal habits, loving shower-baths and 
perfumery. On the battle-field he is as brave as a lion, — 
too brave perhaps, for he has been known to engage when 
he was required to remain inactive.” 

This assertion I am disposed to think a calumny ; for he 
was very angry if his soldiers disobeyed him in the same 
manner. 

‘‘When ordered to retreat,’’ continues the Frenchman, 
“he sheathes his sword, sends. his white charger to the 
front, and remains on foot, the last man in the rear, saying : 
‘They may kill me if they like, but they shall not harm my 
horse unless he is advancing against the enemy.’ He has 
never quitted a battlefield without carrying off his wounded, 
nor has he ever, after a battle, gone to rest without making 
an address to his men and writing his own report to the 
commander-in-chief. He is adored by his soldiers. It is 
a common saying that if Skobeleff were killed every Russian 
soldier in the army would give a opfek to raise his monu- 
ment. He is highly educated and a sincerely religious 
man. ‘Noman can feel comfortable in facing death,’ he 
has been heard to say, ‘who does not believe in God and 
have hope of a life to come.’ Each evening in the camp 
he stood bareheaded, taking part in the evening service 
which was chanted by fifty or sixty of his soldiers.” 

This evening prayer struck our French observer? as very 
touching. ‘If people in Paris,” he says, “who shed tears 
over the Miserére in the Trovatore, could hear these simple 
soldiers in the presence of death, addressing prayers and 
praises to the Almighty Father with their whole hearts, 
they would find it far more moving. Skobeleff is as distin- 
guished for his modesty as his bravery,’’ he continues. 
‘‘He never alludes to his own deeds of valor. ‘My chil- 
dren,’ he says to his soldiers, ‘I wear these crosses, but it 
is you who have won them for me.’ He is a brilliant and 
amusing talker, a man calculated to be the idol of society, 


1 Supplément Littéraire du Figaro. 


250 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE AIXTH CENTURY. 


and to shine among those who are best skilled in the arts of 
making themselves agreeable.” 

One little trait alluded to by this writer I must further 
notice. Skobeleff was devoted to his horses, which were 
bred on his own estates, of an Arab strain. Cruelty to a 
horse was almost as abhorrent to him as brutality to a man ; 
and he had a warm and loving heart for little children. 

After Skobeleff the favorite Russian generals were Radet- 
sky (I know not what relation to the old Austrian general) 
and Gourko, who is still living. He was said to be always 
ten leagues in advance of where you would have expected to 
find him. ‘Todleben had aged since the Crimean war, but 
to him was due the capture of Plevna. ‘The other generals 
had exhausted their troops in direct assaults upon the 
works. ‘Todleben on his arrival said: “No more attacks 
upon the works. Let us raise intrenchment against in- 
trenchment; let us dig; let us put our guns into position, 
and in a few weeks Osman Pasha will be starved out, and 
will fall into our hands.” ‘Todleben knew many languages, 
especially those of the East. He was also a great reader. 
As Osman Pasha slowly starved in Plevna Todleben found 
plenty of leisure for the improvement of his mind. Every 
week a great box of books reached him from St. Peters- 
burg. He said his books enabled him to wait patiently till 
the Turkish commander was ready to surrender. 

As to Osman Pasha, a man who cost the Russians many 
thousands of lives, he had after his surrender no greater 
admirers than the Russians themselves. When he was 
brought into their camp wounded and a prisoner, everybody 
tried to get an opportunity to compliment his defence of 
the city. “I am proud,” said Skobeleff, “to make the 
acquaintance of the brilliant Turkish general, whose valor 
and genius I have so much admired.” Osman replied, 
“The Russian general is yet young, but his fame is great. 
He will soon be the field-marshal of his army, and will 
prove that others may envy Azm, but that he has no reason 
to envy others.” 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 251 


Before the war the Emperor Alexander was respected by 
the great mass of his subjects, but when its successes began 
there was no end of the adoration all Russia felt for him. 
He had not been anxious for war, but he had been led into 
it by the circumstances of his situation. In his first address 
to his army he said: “ While you are fighting I shall pray 
for you;”’ but he soon felt that his true place was on the) 
Danube, and he quitted St. Petersburg for the army in spite. 
of the remonstrances of his generals. When he reached 
the seat of war he assumed no command, but he endeavored 
to inform himself about everything. His presence seemed 
to animate his soldiers, who found him kind, compassionate, 
simple, and easy of approach. 

The first three failures before Plevna moved him greatly. 
His whole expression changed. He became silent, sad, and 
thoughtful. He felt himself compromised by such a run of 
ill-success. How could he return to St. Petersburg an 
unsuccessful sovereign? But he never uttered a word of 
reproach against his generals. ‘To more than one who had 
suffered defeat he said, taking him by the arm: “ My 
poor friend, we must not be discouraged; we shall do 
better next time.” Several times he was heard to say: “If 
we lose I will never return to Russia. I will die here with 
my brave soldiers.’ He was always ready to expose him- 
himself to danger. His escort was fifty Cossacks and his 
staff officers. With these he went everywhere. ‘The Bashi- 
Bazouks might have carried him off twenty times had they 
known of his being near them. 

Mr. Archibald Forbes says of the emperor : — 

“He is a true patriot, earnestly striving for the welfare of his 
‘country; but he toils amid obstacles; he struggles in the heart 
of gathered and incrusted impediments, the perception of which 


on his part must, it seems to me, kindle wrath which is un- 


availing, and bring about misgivings which must awfully per- 


turb, and induce a despair which must strike to his very heart.” 
Of the Russians Mr. Forbes remarks : — 


“The rank and file are splendid soldiers. The Russian 
officers are courteous and gentlemanly. They are delightful 


252 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


comrades, always good-tempered and cheerful, commonly hw 
mane, and very frequently generous, and they never decry an 
enemy. The Russian private is astonishing on the march for 
his powers of endurance, and of carrying weight. He is handi- 
capped, indeed, by many pounds more weight than any other 
soldier in the world. Patient and capable of unlimited endur- 
ance, devoted to his faith and to his czar, the only thing the 
Russian soldier needs is a gallant leader. He is destitute of 
perception when left to himself; somebody must do his think- 
ing. But even if this fails him he remains true to his instincts, 
and stands up to be killed in ‘noble stubbornness of ignorance,’ 
rather than retire when there is no one left to give him orders. 
The Turk, on the other hand, is a born soldier, capable at any 
time of acting for himself in the absence of any officer.” 


But with high admiration for the Russian military force, 
Mr. Forbes cannot speak strongly enough of the corruption 
that prevails in every department of Russian administration 
and paralyzes the operations of a gallant army. Contractors 
who made money out of our own war seem honest patriots 
beside the Russian functionaries employed by the govern- 
ment to superintend the contractors. Skobeleff got rid of 
them all by having nothing to do with the commissariat. 
His men were fed, and well fed, by the care of their 
captains. But their arms were defective and their boots 
wretchedly poor. Each man in place and power, from the 
lowest to the highest, had some man higher than himself to 
favor and sustain him. Everything hinged on favoritism, 
even a boy’s examination at school; and favoritism of course 
led to intrigue. Then, too, few Russians high in office (or 
indeed elsewhere) have any relish for responsibility. 

“The Turks,’ said Mr. Forbes, “in my opinion, com- 
mitted two military blunders. One may surely be remem- 
bered to their honor, and it was probably due to the 
indignation excited against them throughout Christendom 
by the atrocities committed eighteen months earlier on 
Bulgarians, south of the Balkans. When the Russians 
crossed the Danube into Bulgaria, the Turks fell back, 
leaving that rich province to the occupation of the Russian 
army. All Turks who were resident in its towns and villages 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 253 


were ordered to retire south of the Turkish lines, while the 
Christian Bulgarians were left entirely free to welcome and 
provision the invader.” 

Then, being barbarians, ‘the Turks, in a ratte point 
of view,’’ thinks Mr. Forbes, ‘might have taken their 
stand as being such, and have warned all Christendom that 
they meant to make war accordingly ;’’ instead of which 
“they tried,” as he phrases it, “to profit in actual warfare by 
their barbarian instincts, and yet plough with the heifer of 
civilization. ‘The Bashi-Bazouks might be seen after every 
battle torturing and slaughtering the Russian wounded. 
This mode of fighting had its inevitable result upon the 
Russian soldier.” 

And who were the Bashi-Bazouks, who distinguished 
themselves by their inhumanity? They were irregular and 
most banditti-like cavalry, who wore the Turkish dress, but 
were recruited from the scum of every nation. They served 
rather for permission to plunder than for adequate pay. 
During the Crimean War some of them were officered by 
Frenchmen, and served with the allied army. They nearly 
wore out the lives of their officers by their irregularities. 
Finally they were paid off and dismissed. Their officers, 
travelling the same road through a friendly country, along 
which they had passed a few days before, were horrified by 
reports of the atrocities they had committed. 

And now to return to Mikhail Dimitrivitch Skobeleff, made 
governor of Plevna. The Emperor Alexander, on arriving 
there, sent him word that he was coming to take luncheon 
with him. He came, with his staff. Skobeleff was prepared 
to wait, as host, on his illustrious company, but the emperor 
made him sit down with him. Nothing was said by which 
Skobeleff could divine the purpose of this visit. He thought 
indeed that it betokened the imperial displeasure, when 
the emperor, suddenly rising, asked him to show him his 
house. The staff rose also. “No, gentlemen,” said Alex- 
ander, “ the general and I will go alone.” 

Skobeleff conducted the emperor through his apartments, 


254 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


when Alexander turned suddenly and kissed him. “I 
thank thee, Skobeleff,”’ he cried, “for all that thou hast 
done! For thy good service, many, many thanks!” And 
he kissed him again. 

This was well done on Alexander’s part. Such a mark 
of favor shown publicly would have brought down enmity 
and calumny on Skobeleff, and might have increased his 
unpopularity among courtiers and generals. 

The month was November, and the weather north of the 
Balkans was growing bitterly cold. Skobeleff foresaw that 
the Russians must soon cross the mountains, and he was 
deeply solicitous about the equipment of his men. He 
bought up all the sheepskins, boots, and other necessaries 
he could find in Plevna. He changed their heavy knap- 
sacks for bags of linen. He was particularly desirous they 
should have the comfort of fur coats. There came a dealer 
from Russia with a consignment of such articles. Skobeleff 
went to the old general his father, and invited him to ride 
with him to inspect them. ‘The garments were satisfactory. 
The two generals saw them packed and sent off to young 
Skobeleff’s division. As the generals were mounting their 
horses the dealer asked to whom he should send the bill. 
‘Oh, to my father,’ replied Skobeleff, pointing to the old 
general; and then, turning quickly to his escort, he said: 
‘Children, thank my father. He gives all the regiment fur 
overcoats.” 

In vain old Skobeleff fumed and remonstrated. He had 
to pay the bill. Itis just to him to say that although he 
was penurious, the very lavish habits of his son had brought 
him in from time to time large debts which he had to settle 
satisfactorily. 

At Plevna young Skobeleff kept open house. ‘“ His din- 
ner table was surrounded,” says one of his friends, “ by the 
most variegated company.” “TI call it an eating house,” 
said the old general one day, as he entered the dining- 
room. 

(When the time came for resuming the march, in the 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877, 255 
f 


middle of December,)Skobeleff’s divison was to cross the 
Balkans by a pass in the Tscherna Gora range leading to 
Senova. ‘The main army was to take the Shipka Pass. One 
precaution the general took which caused much amusement 
among his brother officers. Each man of his division was 
ordered to carry a log of wood with him. ‘ What will he 
think of next?” said some. ‘If Skobeleff has ordered it,” 
said the Grand Duke Nicholas, “ he has some good reason.” 

He had, indeed, good reasons. He always insisted that 
his men under all circumstances should have three hot 
meals a day. He knew that there would be no firewood 
on the summit of the Balkans. In consequence of his 
precautions not one man of his division arrived disabled or 
frozen on the other side of the mountain range. Not one 
had straggled. ‘The only men that the division lost were 
two who slipped and fell over a precipice. 

The soldiers who crossed the Shipka Pass suffered fright- 
fully. Alexander Verestchagin, who passed over it a week 
or two later in a carriage, relates that he saw pile after pile 
of frozen Russian corpses, many of them young men of the 
Imperial Guard. They could not be buried. They were 
piled up to await the thawing of the earth and the melt- 
ing of the snow. 

Skobeleff’s passage to Senova, though safely accomplished, 
was an awful journey. The men had to break their way 
through snow-drifts. They had to put their cannon upon 
sledges, and drag them along by hand. 

/On the third day they debouched into the Valley of 
/ Roses, which lies between the greater Balkans and a lesser 
\chain. This valley is a little paradise in summer, devoted 
to the cultivation of roses for the attar of roses, which the 
Turks so much prize. 
ye Here Skobeleff and his division fought their great battle 
/of Dec. 28, 1877, and here Turkey lost her last army. 
~ €T congratulate you, my men,” said Skobeleff, when they 
were drawn up in order of battle ; “ throughout this war the 
28th has been to us a day of good fortune.”’ 


256 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Skobeleff always made his bands play when going into 
action. He said that martial airs wonderfully kept up the 
courage of the soldiers. Radetsky and his men shared the 
honors of the day with Skobeleff, much as Blucher and his 
Prussians shared the honors of Waterloo. They descended 
from the mountain into the valley as the battle was being won. 

I need not describe the battle. It is enough to say that 
the Cossack cavalry were very effective, and that regiments 
kept coming down the Shipka Pass as the battle raged, and 
went immediately into action. There was a great deal of 
hand-to-hand fighting in the earth-works thrown up by the 
Turks. In such encounters the Russians would never look 
full in their foes’ faces, it being a superstition that the 
glance of a man you kill will always haunt you. 

At last the Turks put out two white flags. The Turkish 
pashas in command surrendered themselves and their whole 
army. 

Skobeleff’s first order was: ‘‘ Let the Turks’ property be 
sacred to us. Let not a crumb of theirs be lost. Warn the 
men I will shoot them for stealing.” 


“T shall never forget,” says Mr. Kinnaird Rose, “a solemn 
service for the repose of the souls of the dead that was held 
on that battle-field of Senova by the general and a score of 
companions. Skobeleff’s chaplain chanted the mass, with a 
simple dragoon for clerk. Every head was uncovered. The 
party stood in respectful groups around a monumental column 
with its cross, the general to the right of the priest....As the 
service progressed the general wept like a child, and among the 
small but deeply moved congregation, there were but few dry 
eyes.” 


Thirty-five thousand men, and one hundred and thirteen 
guns were surrendered. “The scoundrels!’ muttered 
Skobeleff, — ‘ to give up with such a force, and with such 
a position !”’ 

With the two Turkish generals, as soon as they became 
his prisoners, Skobeleff rode, accompanied by three or four 
Russians only, and a number of Turks, to a distant part of 


—, 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 257, 


the field to stop the fighting. ‘“‘ No wonder,” cried the Turks, 
“that we were beaten; for the Russians were commanded 
by Akh Pasha, and it is impossible to overcome him!” 

Every kindness was shown the prisoners. They mingled 
with Skobeleff’s men, and shared the porridge from their 
camp-kettles. The next day they were sent over the moun- 
tains, and on the journey their sufferings were terrible. 
Verestchagin met parties of them on the mountain, and saw 
many frozen corpses lying where they had halted. 

‘‘ Skobeleff’s care for his men,” writes one who loved him, 
“orew greater and greater as time advanced, His heart 
bled for them; every insult, every injustice to the private 
he felt keenly. It was as if the insult had been aimed at 
him personally. He would grow pale with rage when he 
was told how in one division the men were starved, how in 
another they were flogged, and how in another their lives 
were sacrificed in useless reconnoissances in force.” 

On Jan. 1, 1878, the third day after the battle of Senova, 


| Skobeleff’s division was on its way to cross the Lower 


\ 


\Balkans. It was a forced march, thirty and even fifty 


miles a day, — the infantry, encouraged by their general, 
keeping well up with the cavalry. The Turkish pasha 
stood aghast at the rapidity of his march on Adrianople ; 
and after a fight with Suleiman Pasha, whose men fled to’ 
the mountains, the victorious little army entered the second. 
city of the Turkish Empire. 

The soldiers were billeted in the houses of the inhabi- 
tants, strictly ordered to behave well, and not to appear 
in the streets for two days. By the end of that time 
they had made friends with the population. The shops 
were reopened. There was not one instance of theft or 
burglary, — not a street row. When Skobeleff left the city 
it was occupied by other divisions, and all this was changed.. 

«And now God grant,” said Skobeleff, speaking of the 
success of his forced march, and relating how he had 
entered Adrianople without one man sick in his division ; 
‘God grant that we may soon be in Constantinople !”’ 

17 


~ 
ma, | 


‘y 
» 


258 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


“¢ Adrianople (which the Turks call Edirmé) seemed to me,” 
says the writer from whom I have just quoted, “ like a poetical 
dream. It is a beautiful town, crowned, as it were, by the 
Mosque of Selim with its four beautiful minarets. Its fortifica- 
tions are wonderful. Skobeleff was anxious to know the 
engineer. He saw him afterward in Constantinople, and found 
him an entirely self-educated man, neither bright nor prepossess- 
ing, but with a genius for fortification.” 


The house Skobeleff occupied in Adrianople belonged to 
a renegade, a famous leader of Bashi-Bazouks, a scourge of 
peaceful citizens. It was a marvel of luxury, — tropical 
plants in winter gardens, marble halls, poetical fountains, 
every appliance for self-indulgence. Skobeleff chose the 
plainest room he could find, and his staff occupied those 
more magnificent. 

He governed Adrianople as he had formerly governed 
Plevna. ‘ Everybody,” said a Turk, “thinks it an honor 
to serve Akh Pasha. There are no generals like him. The 
Koran says we must obey him.” ‘“ How do you make that 
out?’ said his questioner. ‘The Koran says: ‘ Be subject 
to your conquerors; there is no power greater than the 
sword.’”’ ‘ Let the White Czar make thee ruler here,” said 
others to the White Pasha ; “we desire nothing better.” 
“In about a fortnight Skobeleff’s division was marched to 


the borders of the Sea of Marmora, only a short distance 
_ from Constantinople. Peace negotiations were already in 


progress; and soon was signed the Treaty of San Stefano. 


~The treaty was not all that the Russians had hoped ; but 


such as it was, almost all its provisions in their favor were 


, set aside by the European Congress at Berlin ; for the police 
_ policy of Europe interfered, and the czar had either to risk 


a European war, or have the settlement of the Eastern 
Question taken out of his hands. 

_ Skobeleff raged when he found the Russian army was not 
even to enter Constantinople. There were moments when 
he debated with himself whether he would not on his own 
responsibility take the city without orders, and break the 
meshes of diplomacy. 


THE “TURKISH WAR OF 1877, 259 


“T would hold a congress in Constantinople — here /”’ 
he said, “and would myself preside, if I were emperor, 
with three hundred thousand bayonets to back me, — 
prepared for any eventuality. Then we could talk to 
them !”’ 

“ But suppose all Europe should oppose you?” 

“There are moments when one must act, —when it is | 
criminal to be too cautious! We may have to wait cen-/ 
turies for so favorable an opportunity. You think the bull- 
dogs would fight us? Never! It should be our duty to 
defend this — our own city—with the last drop of our 
blood !” , 

The English in Constantinople admired Skobeleff im- 
mensely when, like other Russian officers, he went into the 
city in plain clothes. ‘I must tell you, general, honestly,” 
said an English lady, with more candor than good-breed- 
ing, that a hate the sRussians,”’ “And I only isee:a 
beautiful woman before me,’ replied Skobeleff, “and, 
without asking what nation she belongs to, must do her 
homage.”’ 

We see by this how deep is the Russian desire to possess 
Constantinople. It never slumbers; and in our present 
century it breaks out about every fifteen years. 

Skobeleff was one of those who dream of a Pan-Slavonic | 


federation. He thought the Slav States could be federated | 


like those in the German Empire, strong to oppose outside 
influence, but internally at liberty to govern their own/ 
affairs ; and Russia was to possess the power in this feder+ 
ation that Prussia has in Germany. But the Great Powers 
are wholly unwilling to favor any such aggrandizement of 
Russian power and influence. ié 

For a time after the war ended Skobeleff remained 
governor of Bulgaria; and he governed it admirably as a 
Russian province, until he resigned it into the hands of 
Prince Dondoukoff-Koursakoff, and thence was transferred 
to Alexander of Battenberg. 

The Congress of Berlin was assembled to set aside the 


200 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


‘Treaty of San Stefano and to diminish as much as possible 


the influence of Russia in the Eastern Question. Lord 
Beaconsfield and Prince Bismarck took the lead in it; and 
all the other leading European statesmen were present. The 


‘treaty as amended by the Congress was signed July 13, 


1878. 

In brief it contained six stipulations : — 
— I. Bessarabia, torn from Russia after the Crimean War, 
was to be returned to her. 


~_, IL. Bulgaria was formed into a principality ; but only that 


at 


part lying north of the Balkans. 

III. Servia and Montenegro were to receive additional 
territory, and to pay Turkey no more tribute. 
. IV. Greece received a better boundary line, giving her 
more of Macedonia. 


~ V. Bosnia and Herzegovina, unprovided for by the 
‘Treaty of San Stefano, were placed under the protection 


of Austria. 

VI. Russia received some towns and territories in Asia 
Minor, and Batoum, an important sea-port on the Black Sea. 

By a secret stipulation, England was to receive from 
Turkey the Island of Cyprus, as a set-off against Russian 
acquisitions in Armenia. | 
~ No one can admire the corrupt and brutal Russian ad- 
ministration, nor the organization of its police, — which, 
by the way, Skobeleff hated so cordially that he would 
never have anything to do with any officer or soldier who 
had served under him, if he disgraced himself by joining 
it, — but one cannot but feel that Russia was most ungen- 
erously treated by the Congress. Hers had been the blood 
and the money that had been expended ; and what did she 
get in return? 

“No great power shall have Constantinople with my con- 
sent,” said the first Napoleon ; and this view has guided the 
police policy of Europe to the present day. 

Skobeleff's opinion was that a great European war was not 
far distant, and that it would begin by a struggle for life or 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 261 


death between Russia and Germany. He hoped to be in 
it, and yet he expected an early death. 

In 1880 his father died, leaving him, to his great surprise, 
an enormous fortune. He was at once full of plans for do- 
ing good with it to old or disabled soldiers. I do not know 
whether his intentions have been carried into effect. 

In 1880 he requested the command of an expedition to 
subdue the Tekké, —the Russian name for Tartar robbers, 
who persisted in attacking the Russians in Turkestan. These 
people had a mountain fastness called Geok Tepi. It had 
resisted all attempts to take it, and had utterly discomfited 
other Russian commanders. 

Skobeleff felt it to be, as he said, “a difficult business — 
very difficult. A large army,” he continued, “ cannot be 
taken there. The thieves have cost Russia quite enough 
money as it is; and if we do not give them the coup de 
grace, all our Turkestan possessions will find themselves in 
a precarious state.’’ He had grown older and sadder and 
more discreet before this expedition, in which he was bril- 
liantly successful, — not more in his storming of Geok Tepi 
than he was in winning the confidence of the Tekké, and in 
punishing and circumventing the deliquencies of officials in 
the commissariat. 

He was less excitable, less lavish than he had been. In 
all else he was the same as ever. When he came from the | 
East, he went to Paris ; and there, and at Warsaw, he made | 
Pan-Slavist speeches, the sentiments of which were disavowed | 
by his government, and created considerable stir in diplo- / 
matic and journalistic circles. It was the first time he had 
taken any part in politics. He had said that “in the field 
it was his duty to be only a soldier.” 

A friend, who saw him after he returned from the East, 
was struck by his air of depression and despondency, and 
got him to talk about his campaign. “It is not the expedi- 
tion,” said Skobeleff, ‘‘ which has had such an effect on me, 
although there were some terrible moments. My army was 
small — but what of that? I have faced worse foes than the 


202 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Tekké. The death of my mother, however, has been a very 
great blow tome. Her murdered body seems always before 
me. And who did it but one who owes his all — positively 
his a/—to me! I went about like a madman for the first 
few days. Her image is still before me as if she were calling 
me. Do you know, I think I have not long to live.” 

This mother — so dear to him — was extremely beautiful. 
He was always, to her, “ her boy.”” When her husband died 
she went into Bulgaria, and found comfort in her bereave- 
ment in the organization of schools, hospitals, and orphan- 
ages. Her son had detailed, as her guard and attendant, 
one of his own aides-de-camp, a young Russian whom he 
had literally out of compassion raised to the position he 
then held. This scoundrel formed the diabolical plan of 
murdering Madame Skobeleff and robbing her of her jewels 
and twenty-five thousand dollars she was carrying with her 
for distribution to her various charities. He effected his 
object on a journey from Philippolis to Sofia. Skobeleff 
received the news in Turkestan; and the deep emotion it 
caused him, from which he never recovered, may have had 
its influence on his own fate. 


. “On Skobeleff’s last visit to Moscow,” writes one of his 
friends, “he invited me to dine with him two or three days 
ahead. On the morning of the day I was to do so my man 
ran into my room, crying, ‘The general is dead!’ ‘ What 
general?’ ‘General Skobeleff!’ The man burst into tears. 
I hurried to the hotel. A crowd thronged the street, weeping 
and praying for his soul. The body had been brought from 
his bedroom into a small antechamber. Only the evening be- 
fore he had been gayly chatting with some of his old staff 
officers. He died, the doctors said, of heart disease. He lay, 
when IJ arrived, not yet dressed in his uniform, his body covered 
with a pall of cloth of gold. Loud sobs were audible all around. 
The light fell full on his delicate, handsome face, on his long 
golden whiskers combed out on each side, which stirred occa- 
sionally in the breeze as if he were living. Two sentries soon 
appeared, to stand beside him. Discipline forbade them to raise 
their hands to their faces, but one man’s tears were trickling 
down his beard.” 


THE TURKISH WAR OF 1877. 263 


There still hangs deep mystery over the cause of the 
death of Skobeleff. Recently the Figaro called on any of 
its readers who knew anything authentic on the subject to 
answer the question: “Are the circumstances of General 
Skobeleff’s death sufficiently known to enable us to dis- 
entangle fact from fiction? ” 

The question produced two answers: one from Madame 
Juliette Adam, Skobeleff’s especial friend and admirer ; 
the other from M. Ivan de Weestyne, the only newspaper 
correspondent who was in Moscow at the date of Skobeleff’s 
death. 

Madame Adam had already published a pamphlet on 
the subject, in which she exposed her reasons for believing 
that he was foully murdered by two German adventuresses, 
paid for the crime out of the Guelph fund. 

M. de Weestyne’s communication is as follows : — 


“T affirm that the idea of foul play in the death of the late 
illustrious general at the age of thirty-nine must be laid aside. 
I had visited Skobeleff the morning before his death, and he 
had asked me to breakfast with him the next morning. 

“By chance I met him about four o’clock in the afternoon in 
the Tverskaia, the great avenue which leads tothe Park... . He 
stopped his carriage, and asked me to go with him. I declined, 
and saw him no more till the next day, when he was laid out in 
full uniform in the apartment on the ground-floor of the Hotel 
Dussaud, occupied in 1878 by Mademoiselle Stella, the singer. 

“T had a full account of his death from an employé of the 
chancellerie who lived just over the room on the ground-floor 
where he was carried off by a congestion. This apartment was 
in a house at the end of a courtyard, the front of which was 
occupied by a French hair-dresser and a Russian liquor-dealer, 
people always ready to talk. 

“T telegraphed all I learned, in four languages, to the ‘ New 
York Herald,’ heping by this means to escape the censorship. 

“ At one in the morning I was awakened by the head of the 
telegraph office, who told me Prince Dolgorouki, the governor- 
general of Moscow, wished to see me. 

‘“‘T went at once to the palace, where the prince, after shaking 
hands with me, laid before me three of my despatches. 


264 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


““¢ Did you telegraph that ?’ he asked. 

ray es. Ocher Als 

“ And then, as the excellent old man seemed greatly disturbed 
to think that I had done so, I added at once: — 

“¢T sent another dispatch to New York, saying: “ Now that 
you have all details in your possession, I think, seeing the great 
celebrity of the person they concern, you had better withhold 
them from the public, and simply announce his death.” ’ 

“When the prince heard this, he seemed overjoyed, and in- 
sisted I should sit down to supper with him. 

“The ‘ New York Herald’ withheld its information, but some 
years after, annoyed by all sorts of irrational and contradictory 
reports, I published what I knew in the ‘ Gaulois.’ But I am not 
inclined to tell a second time a story for relating which I have 
been reproached by some of my very good friends among the 
Russians.” 


Thus it will be seen that over the death of Skobeleff still 
hangs a mystery. 

His funeral procession from Moscow to his estates was 
such as could only have been given to one whom all men 
loved. All over Russia and in Bulgaria masses were said 
for him. ‘He was one of our own,” said the peasant and 
the soldier. 


CHAPTER XI. 
THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER IIL. 


a HE remaining three years of Alexander I1.’s life after the 

| 4 conclusion of the Turkish war were very miserable. 

~ Indeed we can hardly conceive of any human being of whom 
it might so truly have been said: ‘“ Without were fightings, 
and within were fears,’’ — fears, less for his own life, for life 
could hardly have been dear to him, than for all those whom he 
treated with confidence, or who surrounded him. Not only 
were his ministers killed under orders of the Revolutionary 
Committee, but policemen and Cossacks who were placed 
about his person for his safety. Society in St. Petersburg 
would not buy tickets for the Opera when it was known that 
the emperor was likely to attend the performance, fearing 
some dynamite explosion ; office-seekers were discouraged 
by the perils of an official position; daily black-bordered/ 
letters threatening the emperor’s death were found among 
his clothes, or among his papers. On one occasion his 
handkerchief was filled with some explosive powder, which 
injured his sight for a time; on another a box of pills sent 
him as a remedy for asthma proved to contain a very small 
but very powerful infernal machine. No wonder that 
though only fifty-nine years of age he grew haggard and 
pale, that his hair was blanched, his form shrunken, and his 
nerves unstrung. He suffered, too, from sleeplessness, from 
overwork, and the continual strain of anxiety. eos ae 

The causes of his unpopularity with Nihilists and Pan-/ v 

Slavists were manifold. By the peasantry his memory is 
still adored, as I should think it still must be by all who 


266 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE X/IXTH CENTURY. 


can appreciate what the aim of his life was, and can echo 
the words of Mr. Gladstone: ‘The sole labor of a devoted 
life was, with the deceased sovereign, to improve his inheri- 
tance for the benefit of*his subjects and of mankind.” 

He had undertaken a work too vast for him, —a work 
for which he had at hand no fitting materials ; and it resulted 
in lost illusions, and in disappointments visited by others on 
himself; for it is one of the penalties of autocracy that the 
emperor is held responsible for everything, — bad harvests, 
pestilence, or the abuse of power by officials who are sup- 
posed to have little individual responsibility. 

The new conditions of existence opened to the peasants 
after the Emancipation had not worked as popular enthu- 
siasm had anticipated. The peasants retained their devotion 
to their czar, but they had practically only exchanged one 
form of serfage for another. For three years there had 
been bad harvests throughout Russia, and the taxes and 
responsibilities imposed upon them by their new condition 
filled them with discontent. The army, and all those who 
had lost friends in the Turkish war, were beyond measure 
outraged by the Treaty of Berlin. ‘They had thought their 
emperor was too moderate in the Treaty of San Stefano ; 
but when that treaty was set aside, and Armenian Christians 
in the East, and Macedonian Christians south of the Balkans 
were delivered over again to the tender mercies of the Mos- 
lems, their wrath fell upon the czar who had consented to 
such sacrifices. The Pan-Slavists who hoped that the result 
of the war would have been a Slavonic federation, found 
themselves further than ever from the realization of their 
dream, since the new kingdoms and principalities torn from 
the Turkish Empire were given over to German rulers, 
supposed to be inimical to Russia; then, too, the crop of 
young men and women educated in the new schools and 
colleges founded by Alexander, without sufficient precaution 
as to the moral qualifications of the professors, had just 
come upon the scene, boiling over with excitement and 
revolutionary fervor, eager to be doing something, and 


THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER UL. 2067 


furious at finding all outlets for their activity closed. 
Besides this, the foreign newspapers never ceased their 
attacks upon Alexander. They said he was past work. 
They opened their columns even to Nihilistic writers. The 
old Emperor William remained faithfully attached to his 
nephew, but Prince Bismarck fully recognized the strong 
anti-German feeling in the Russian Empire, and did not 
scruple ‘‘in ways that were dark’ to take revenge upon the 
Russians and their czar. 

Alexander himself felt painfully the incompleteness of his 
work, and his own inability to deal with forces that were too 
strong for htm. Ina speech made in 1879 he said: “ We 
have great tasks yet before us. Those to be attended to at 
once are the reduction of our expenses; the regulation of 
our currency; further reorganization of our army; and 
improvement of the sanitary conditions of our country. 
There is more to be done, which must wait till the existing 
passions are appeased. If I must die before such reforms 
are accomplished I trust they will be carried out by my 
successor.” 

During these latter years of his life the emperor’s unhap- 
piness was aggravated by the condition of his wife, who was 
dying slowly of consumption, and whose sufferings from 
apprehension for the safety of those she loved were intense. 
To no one in Russia had the, insufficient success of a war 
into which she had put all her heart, and a great portion of 
her means, cn behalf of oppressed Christians, been more 
full of disappointment. 

Alexander had not been a faithful husband, — but he 
endeavored to make up to his wife for his Zazson with the 
Princess Dolgorouka, by whom he had three children, by 
devoted personal attention during her illness, and by his 
tender solicitude. 

2 We must not forget that the motto of true Nihilism is 
\ that “ whatever is, is wrong; ”’ and must also remember that 
the political exiles in Siberia are very far from being all 
Nihilists. The Russian police, in chronic dread of Nihilism 


268 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


and its plots, lays hands ignorantly and indiscriminately on 
any man suspected of liberal opinions; and when arrested 
he has no redress, because, unless accused of a crime he 
has no trial, but is sent off to Siberia as a precautionary 
measure, by what is called “ administrative process,” lest 
his opinions should “take root downward and bear fruit 
upward’”’ in some dangerous way. 

“The headquarters of the Nihilists outside of Russia were 
in Geneva. Their leaders sat there like spiders in the 
centre of a web. 

In February, 1879, when the Nihilists, exasperated by the 
results of the Turkish War, had worked themselves into 
frenzy, Prince Krapotkin,! governor-general of Kharkoff, was 
assassinated by a Nihilist agent, a Jew named Goldenburg, 
who, after dogging him for some days, fired at night into 
his carriage window, and escaped arrest in the darkness. 

In April a young Nihilist, Solovieff, fired at the emperor. 
Goldenburg had solicited the post, but was rejected by the 
Nihilist Central Committee on the ground that the czar’s 
murderer must be an orthodox Russian. ‘The attempt was 
made on Easter Monday, April 14, a day considered fatal 
to rulers by the Nihilists, because on that day of the month 
John Wilkes Booth had succeeded in assassinating President 
Lincoln. 

In June, 1879, the Nihilists held a convention and 
resolved to use dynamite, to destroy the governors-gencral 
of Odessa, Kieff, and St. Petersburg, and to leave no means 
unemployed to kill the czar and his heir-apparent. In 1878 
they had succeeded in killing General Menzenzel, chief of 
police, and Baron Heykin of Kieff. The successors of 
General Menzenzel — Drenteln and Trepoff — barely escaped 
death, and the latter was severely wounded. To become 
one of the czar’s ministers in those years was as dangerous 
as leading a forlorn hope. 

The first result of the agreement to use dynamite, and of 


1 Brother of Prince Krapotkin, Nihilist and exile, author of much 
magazine literature. 


THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER II. 269 


the plans fixed upon for introducing it into Russia, was 
the mining of three railroads, beneath which dynamite was 
placed for the purpose of blowing up the czar and those 
about his person, One mine, however, proved useless, the 
emperor having changed his route at the last moment; one 
failed to explode, probably from want of skill in its man- 
agement ; but the history of the third mine, which exploded, 
and killed or wounded very many persons, though not the 
czar, is worth relating. 

A house on the railroad not very far from Moscow had 
been purchased by one of the conspirators. He took pos- 
session of it with several other men, and two women; 
others were lodged in the nearest town, and came sometimes 
to visit their friends. Without tools, except two shovels and 
a grocer’s scoop, they proceeded to mine from the house 
under the railroad, placing boards, tent-fashion, as they 
went along. On reaching the railroad track they bored 
holes upward with a large auger and inserted iron pipes, 
which communicated with dynamite stored below. Their 
greatest difficulty was how to dispose of the earth they dug 
out of the mine. At first it was spread out smoothly and 
trodden down in their yard; then they began to fill the 
cellar with it, and finally the larder. They were greatly 
embarrassed on one occasion by the persistency of the wife 
of the former owner of the house, who insisted on going 
into the larder in search of some pots of preserve she had 
left behind. 

When the day and hour of the emperor’s journey were 
announced, Sophia Perovskya, the most enthusiastic of the 
women, was appointed to stand on the track, and give the 
signal by waving her handkerchief. The imperial train was 
always preceded by a pilot train to see that the track was 
clear, to avoid accidents. This train passed safely ; and in 
it was the emperor. The other train was wrecked when, as 
had been expected, it pulled up at a water-station. 

Some of the conspirators were arrested; but the chief 
-man among them, a German called Hartmann, escaped. 


270 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTORY. 


He had Nihilist friends all along his route, pledged to assist 
a brother Nihilist. Had he been an ordinary thief, he 
could not have evaded the police; but at every stage hands 
were held out to help him; disguises were provided for 
him, and he was passed from one Nihilist agent to another. 
Sometimes he travelled on foot; sometimes in peasants’ 
carts with ox-teams; while those who were hunting for 
him were systematically put off his track. He passed the 
frontier of Russia without difficulty, reached Berlin, and 
telegraphed to his fellow-conspirators at Geneva, who at 
once set about hatching another and, unhappily, a more 
successful plot. Before, however, this was executed, there 
were intermediate horrors. 

On Feb. 5, 1880, the czar was to entertain at dinner 
Prince Alexander of Hesse in the Winter Palace, where the 
czarina (the prince’s sister) was lying very ill, — almost at 
the point of death. 

Prince Alexander ought to have been punctual; but for 
some reason he was late. Had it not been for this delay, 
the whole imperial party would have been blown up at their 
dinner-table: While they were proceeding to the dining- 
room along a corridor, a tremendous explosion took place. 
Officials rushed wildly about the lower story of the palace 
under the impression that the heating apparatus, or the gas, 
had blown up. The alarm bell of the corps de garde rang 
frantically ; and above the confusion rose the shrieks of the 
dying and the wounded, who struggled from beneath the 
debris of the demolished guard-room. There were in all 
sixty-seven victims. 

In the midst of the confusion one of four carpenters who 
had been employed for four months in the Winter Palace 
was found to be missing. Dynamite had been stored in a 
tool-chest in his room. He was a Nihilist leader, who had 
feigned himself a workingman. He was never found after 
that day; and, for aught we know, he may be living in 
America. 

Two days later the body of a policeman was found on 


GENERAL SKOBELEFF. 


LIBRARY 


| , UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS son A 
; UREANA 


THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER II. 271 


the ice of the frozen Neva, pierced with many wounds. 
Pinned to his breast was a paper denouncing death 
to every governor-general, except Loris Melikoff, who 
had succeeded the murdered Krapotkin as governor at 
Kharkoff. 

It was to Loris Melikoff that in that terrible hour of dis- 
tress Alexander II. turned. 

Loris Melikoff was born of a noble Armenian family in 
the Caucasus; and his appearance showed his Oriental 
origin. His complexion and his glance were Asiatic ; his 
expression of quick intelligence was European. Nubar 
Pasha, the great Egyptian statesman, had the same origin. 

Loris entered the Russian military service young, and until 
he became a major-general, in 1856, his career had been 
wholly provincial. In 1877 he was placed at the head of 
the Russian army in Asia, and distinguished himself greatly 
in the taking of Kars, which had been brilliantly defended 
by the Turks under English officers. In the spring of 1878 
he made his first appearance at St. Petersburg. He had 
lived principally with books ; but the charm of his conversa- 
tion was irresistible. All felt that there was something dif- 
ferent in him from the ordinary courtier, — different from 
the usual type of a military man. After he had been a few 
months in St. Petersburg, the plague broke out in a remote 
part of the Russian dominions. He was appointed gov- 
ernor of the province. He hastened to his post, and 
applied vigorous sanitary measures ; the plague disappeared, 
and he became the idol of the people. On his return to 
St. Petersburg, in April, 1879, he found the city in the 
greatest excitement. Solovieff had just fired five ineffectual 
pistol-shots at the emperor; martial law was proclaimed in 
the chief cities ; and Melikoff was sent to Kharkoff, — a very 
hot-bed of Nihilism. 

In a few weeks he was the most popular man in all Rus- 
sia. Every one contrasted his methods of government with 
those of other governors. The true liberal party began to 
think of him as its leader. He was stern to genuine Nihil- 


272 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


ists, but on him were fixed the eyes of true reformers ; 
and when, after the explosion in the Winter Palace, in 
1880, the government knew not what to do, Alexander 
called around him all his governor-generals, and offered to 
abdicate, if they thought his abdication could in any way 
restore peace and order to the empire, —a resolution was 
taken to make Loris Melikoff for six months dictator of 
Russia. He was not dictator in name; but he had a 
dictator’s powers. 

The empress died June 1, 1880, and was buried with the 
usual funeral ceremonies, which in the case of a member of 
the imperial family are of great pomp and long duration. 
It is said that preparations had been made to blow up the 
bridge over the Neva, as the hearse passed over it, followed 
by the emperor and all his sons on horseback ; but that a 
storm and freshet, which caused the waters of the river to 
rise, drowned out the preparations. 
~ Not long after the death of the empress Alexander was mor- 
ganatically married to the Princess Dolgorouka, the witnesses 
present being the czarevitch, the Grand Duke Michael, and 
the emperor’s trusted friend, Count Adlerberg. 

In the last speech made in public by the Emperor Alex- 
ander he said that “he was greatly occupied with plans 
of reform: that he desired to abolish the poll-tax, first 
instituted by Peter the Great; to perfect a better system 
of allotments, which would benefit the peasantry; to make 
the examinations less severe for military or civil service, — 
believing as he did that many who had failed were driven 
by disappointment into the ranks of his enemies; to make 
the railroads less expensive to the State ; and to abolish the 
heavy imposts laid on the estates of Polish nobles to defray 
the expenses of the insurrection of 1863.” 

The twenty-fifth anniversary of Alexander’s emancipation 
proclamation was at hand, The day had been dreaded as 
one on which there would probably be an outbreak of Nihil- 
ists; but it passed off quietly. The appointment of Loris 
Melikoff, —the forlorn hope of utter helplessness — was 


THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER 11. 273 


apparently crowned with success. The minister of public 
instruction, Count Dimitri Tolstoi, obnoxious for his op- 
pressive measures, had been dismissed. ‘The Third Section. 
(in other words, the Russian star-chamber) was abolished ;. 
the hated tax on salt was given up; restrictions on the free-. 
dom of the press were removed. ‘To use the words ofa 
Russian, “ A regenerating breath seemed to pass over the 
land, and to bring back the air of life to the lungs of pant- 
ing millions.” 

Finally, in February, 1881, when the rule of Loris Meli- 
koff had lasted a year (for at the end of his dictatorship he 
continued to govern as minister of the interior), it was. 
rumored that the czar was about to grant a constitution. 

That document was the summoning of a species of States 
General, deputies to which were to be elected from the 
Zemstovos, or Provincial Councils, and to offer their advice 
to their sovereign. They were not to have the same func- 
tions as our Congress or those of the Reichtag or the English: 
Parliament, which hold power by control over the finances,. 
but it was an immense step in advance to associate the 
Russian people in any way with their general government. 

The paper was signed on March 12 (according to our 
calendar) the czar making over it the sign of the cross, and 
remarking to Melikoff as he did so that it seemed to him 
like the calling of the States General by Louis XVI. 

The paper lay on his desk ready to be sent to his coun- 
cil the next day, but it was never sent; the hand of Fate 
was on Alexander. Ever since power had been conferred 
on Melikoff his sovereign had objected to the harassing pre- 
cautions taken to ensure the safety of his person. He per- 
sisted in taking his daily walk upon the Quai. He would 
drive in a drosky with his coachman and one Cossack in 
the streets of St. Petersburg. He refused to be attended,. 
as several of his ministers were, by a guard of Cossacks, 
_ saying: ‘Only Providence can protect me, and when God 
no longer sees fit to do so, these Cossacks cannot possibly 
help me.” 

18 


274 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


On the morning of March 12 Melikoff came to tell him 
that a man connected with the explosion on the Moscow 
railroad had been arrested, in whose possession were 
found plans for a new plot, and entreated him not to expose 
himself. 

But on Monday, March 13 (or March 1, according to the 
old style used in Russia) the emperor went early to mass ; 
then with his brother he reviewed his household troops, and 
an hour after he was brought back to his palace torn in 
pieces, and bathed in blood. 

I said that Hartmann, when he made his escape the year 
after his attempt to kill the czar and all about him on a 
railroad, reached Berlin, and telegraphed to Geneva. He 
telegraphed also to a young Russian student named Trigoni 
to meet him in Paris. This man, after due instructions 
from Hartmann, was sent back to St. Petersburg. We have 
no means of knowing what he did there, but he was arrested 
by the police a few days before the fatal morning when 
Alexander was assassinated. It was this arrest that induced 
Melikoff to implore his master not to go to the review upon 
that fatal morning ; but the danger seemed very vague, and 
the emperor would not be deterred. 

Geneva in 1879 was full of Nihilists, all in a state of great 
excitement and activity ; and there were plenty of Russian 
spies watching them. About the time when Melikoff came 
to the head of affairs Hartmann, on demand of the Russian 
government, was expelled from France, and disappeared, 
going no one knew whither ; but it was conjectured that he 
had gone back to Russia, where rumors of a new plot were 
beginning to be rife. In consequence of these rumors the 
chief of police under Melikoff withdrew the spies of his 
predecessor from Geneva, and concentrated them on home 
service, leaving the Nihilists in Geneva unwatched to work 
their will. 

It was proposed by some among them that the czar . 


1 This account is principally from an article in the “ Gentleman’s 
Magazine,” 1888, by J. E. Muddock. 


THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER I. 275 


should be poisoned. By all it was agreed that his son 
must perish with him. In the event of this double murder 
being successful, a rising was to take place simultaneously 
in Moscow and St. Petersburg; barricades were to be 
raised, the palaces seized, and a new government in the 
name of the people was to proceed to make a constitution. 

It is hard to know what is meant in Russia by “the peo- 
ple,’ —the small middle or professional class, it is to be 
supposed, recruited by disappointed young men who are 
younger members of the old nobility. It can hardly include 
the lately emancipated peasants, the army, or the enormous 
staff of office-holders under the government. It was from 
the middle, or literary and professional class, that the Nihilist 
ranks were chiefly recruited ; also from the various univer- 
sities, where highly “ liberal ideas’’ were considered “ good 
form,” and a “little”? knowledge of political economy, 
without balance, proved a “dangerous thing”’ to its pos- 
sessors. We may add to this what is known to all those 
who have lived under the repressive tyranny of a local 
police, that the very fact of being forced to be secret stimu- 
lates the desire for conspiracy. 

It is not that the fundamental ideas of Russian revolu- 
tionists are wrong. They are the ideas that govern our 
own country, and all the countries of western Europe ; but 
the ideas of liberty, equality, civil rights, universal suffrage, 
and the rest, must have a foundation of experience in self- 
government to rest upon. If they have not there must be 
a counterbalancing power somewhere in the State to keep 
things steady. ‘The working of self-government in Russian 
village communities does not encourage us to place much 
reliance on the present fitness of the nation for experiments 
of the same kind on a larger scale. The Russian peasant, 
like the Russian soldier, seems only to desire to be kindly, 
sympathetically, and wisely governed. A few thousand 
Skobeleffs in civil life might solve all difficulties. 

Among the leading Nihilists were women of rank and cul- 
tivation. A woman who once passes the barriers that 


276 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


restrain her sex is apt to stop at nothing. She will go 
straight on to her end, no matter what she destroys, nor 
how high may be the obstruction that she has to leap over. 
Her very highest qualities may be enlisted in the cause of 
evil, — self-devotedness, energy, perseverance, and even 
tender-heartedness, though one-sided. Such a woman was 
Sophia Leooffa Perovskya. She was in 1880 about twenty- 
five years of age. She had been well educated, she was 
handsome, winsome, and fascinating. By birth she was 
noble, and her father had been many years governor of 
St. Petersburg. Unhappily, during her babyhood he had 
cast off his wife and banished her to Switzerland, leaving 
their daughter to grow up in ignorance of her mother’s 
being alive. Sophia when she learned all this burned to 
revenge herself upon her father for what she considered his 
brutality, and on the government, of which, in her eyes, he 
was the representative. She entered into various Nihilist 
plots, one of her objects being to bring disgrace upon her 
father.1 Her beauty and her high connections gave her 
great power. She could go where meaner plotters could 
not tread, and men of rank and position about the court 
fell victims to her fascinations. She possessed a wonderful 
power of drawing men on to reveal to her their secrets, and 
in this way she was able to learn all the movements of the 
court, and all the precautions taken by the police to secure 
the czar’s safety. To obtain this information, that she 
might impart it to her fellow conspirators, was the object of 
her existence. To effect her purpose she felt no scruple in 
leading the life of a woman of lost character. After break- 
ing from her father she had at one time joined her mother 
in Geneva, and there associated with the leading Nihilists. 
The poisoning plan did not find favor with the Revolu- 
tionary Executive Committee. ‘They said that the death of 
the czar was to produce what they called “a great moral 
effect ;”’ and that that soral effect would be lost by vulgar poi- 
soning, — indeed that the matter would be hushed up, and 


1 Cosmopolitan Magazine, September, 1891. 


THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER II, 277 


that the Nihilists would not get the credit for it that they 
deserved. ‘Their idea was to startle the world with the 
performance of a tragic drama, that should have a vast mul- 
titude for audience, so that there should be thousands of 
living witnesses that Nihilism was irresistible.”’ 

A student in the School of Chemistry in St. Petersburg 
sent to the Nihilist committee in Paris a recipe for a very 
formidable compound for filling bombs. He stated that two 
drachms of the devilish agent being exploded would kill 
every living thing within twelve yards. 

What became of this inventor is not known. He is 
thought to have drowned himself in the Neva. An ex- 
divinity student in St. Petersburg constructed the bombs. 
The explosive matter to fill them was made up in France. 
Every precaution was taken. Every chance on either side 
was calculated beforehand. To make assurance doubly 
sure, a cheesemonger’s shop was opened on a street lead- 
ing to the palace, and a mine was constructed from it under 
the roadway; while the bombs were to be thrown at the 
emperor if he drove home along another street leading 
from the Catherine Canal. 

The mine was very carefully prepared. It was filled with 
dynamite, and had it been fired, it would have wrought 
terrible destruction as well as have blown up the czar. 

Sophia Perovskya was not the only woman concerned in 
the conspiracy; there was a Jewish girl named Hesse Helf- 
man. Hesse was openly the mistress of one of the con- 
spirators. Sophia’s derelictions, which she used to promote 
her political purposes, were not so well-known. The police 
obtained some information which, on the roth or rrth of 
March, caused them to attempt the arrest of Hesse Helf- 
man’s lover, who at once shot himself; but a great deal 
of information was found in the girl’s house ; and this caused 
Loris Melikoff, as I have said, to remonstrate earnestly with 
the emperor about exposing himself. It does not, however, 
seem to have moved the police to take especial precautions 
for his safety. 


278 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


It has always been a mystery to the world and the police 
how the materials used in the manufacture of the new ex- 
plosive were brought from Paris into Russia. Even the tea 
- that came over the eastern frontier on the backs of camels 
had for the past year or two been carefully searched ; fur- 
niture and carriages imported from western Europe were 
often rendered worthless by being pulled to pieces by 
the police to examine their stuffing. All travellers were 
minutely searched, and women were required to take off all 
their clothes, often in the presence of gendarmes. Any- 
one coming by sea or railroad to St. Petersburg could not 
engage a cab to take him to his house or a hotél without per- 
mission of the police; and yet the very thing to exclude 
which all these precautions were daily taken was brought 
into the country. 

It is supposed that an old Jew carried it from Paris to 
Geneva in a leather travelling case ; and that a woman trans- 
ported it thence to Frankfort, whence it was despatched by 
various ways and in small quantities to St. Petersburg. 

As the day for the regicide approached, the conspirators 
worked incessantly. ‘The bombs were ingeniously con- 
structed. The explosive compound looked like golden 
syrup, and was sweet to taste. If a drop or two fell ona 
hot stove they produced instantaneously a brilliant sheet of 
flame ; but it made no smell and no noise. 

Sophia Perovskya meantime kept the chief plotters well 
informed, and was soon able to announce that on March 13 
the emperor was going with his brother, the Grand Duke 
Michael, to inspect his body-guard. It was then decided 
to destroy him as he drove back to the Winter Palace. The 
attempt was probably hastened lest the discoveries made 
by the police at the house of Hesse Helfman should frus- 
trate the conspiracy. The first design had been to select 
some occasion on which the emperor and the czarevitch 
would be together. 

Sophia had a lover high at court; and from him she 
probably obtained all the desired information. She did not 


THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER I. 279 


know, however, which route the emperor would take. If 
that by the Sadoveya (one of the principal streets of St. 
Petersburg), he would pass over the mine, which would then 
be exploded ; if he went by the Catherine Canal, the bombs 
were to be thrown at him. 

Everything was ready. Sophia drew ai to assist the 
bomb-throwers, and volunteered to signal the approach of 
the emperor’s carriage. She had two men under her espe- 
cial orders, — Resikoff and Elnikoff, the latter a young man 
completely fascinated by her beauty. 

Resikoff threw the first bomb. It exploded with a 
tremendous report, slightly wounding the horses of the 
emperor’s carriage, and killing on the spot a baker’s boy 
and the Cossack footman. ‘The coachman was unhurt, and 
he implored the czar not to get out of the carriage, but to 
let him drive him swiftly out of the gathering crowd. But 
Alexander had seen that somebody was hurt, and insisted 
on getting out that he might give assistance. As he set foot 
on the pavement, Elnikoff flung his bomb at him. It ex- 
ploded at the czar’s feet; but though the explosion was 
tremendous, and men, standing many yards away, were 
thrown down by it, only two men were killed, — the 
emperor and Elnikoff. The latter died almost immediately ; 
the emperor lingered some hours in frightful pain. His 
lower limbs, and the lower part of his body, had been 
blown to pieces. 

There were eight men and two women concerned in the 
execution of this plot. Of these, one shot himself; one was 
killed by the explosion ; two, who were brothers, made their 
escape ; and four, together with the women, were sentenced 
to execution. 

Men intimate with Sophia, from whom she had extracted 
information, were greatly alarmed lest she should betray 
them. She, however, held her peace. Owing to her rank, 
the young Czar Alexander III. had himself to sign her 
death-warrant. This he was very reluctant to do; and she 
would possibly have been spared had it not been for the 


280 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


earmest representations of courtiers, who feared that their 
indiscreet revelations to her might be brought to light. 
Hesse Helfman was not executed; but Sophia Perovskya 
was hanged with the four men in the presence of a crowd, 
who seemed to think that hanging was ‘too good for 
them.” 

_« The rising that was to have taken place immediately on 
the czar’s death failed to be accomplished. The Nihilists 
made nothing by their crime. The czar was no sooner 
dead than the cry was raised: “ Long live the czar!” — 
and ‘the dropped crown of Alexander II. was immediately 
taken up by Alexander III.” 

For some time Nihilism was scotched, but not killed. 
It revived again, however, and holds the sword of Damocles 
over the emperor’s head. His nerves, it is said, have been 
greatly shaken by the continual apprehension in which he 
lives; but he is happy in the deep devotion of his wife, 
Princess Dagmar of Denmark (in Russia the Empress 
Maria Feodorovna), and occasionally, while visiting ex famille 
her parents, the good Danish king and queen, he can throw 
off the terrible cares that oppress him. 

The plan for a species of constitution to be given to 
Russia fell to the ground. Prince Ignatieff, who had 
returned from his embassy to Constantinople, and was high 
in the young czar’s favor, and Katkoff, the Russian journalist, 
remonstrated earnestly with the new sovereign against its 
being carried into effect. ‘The Nihilists had destroyed all 
hopes of liberal institutions. 

Loris Melikoff felt that his hour was past, and that his 
mission was over. He and his colleagues resigned. A few 
days later he set out for his old home in the Caucasus. 
But soon he felt himself ill at ease in his retirement, 
and his health gave way.1 His malady was slow con- 
sumption. He went to Nice, where he lived in strict 
retirement, keeping an attentive eye on the public affairs 
of his own country: He never spoke of the past with 


1 Revue des Deux Mondes. 


THE ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER I, 281 


bitterness, though he commented sometimes on the pres- 
ent with severity. 

He died in the winter of 1888, aged sixty-three, and is 
buried at Nice in the same cemetery as Léon Gambetta. 
The time had been when the names of those two men rang 
loudest throughout Europe ; now they sleep in neighboring 
graves, and by the world outside of Russia Loris Melikoff, 
one of the most remarkable men of his times, is almost 
forgotten. 

The tragedy of 1881 taught the Russian authorities the 
lesson that “eternal vigilance is the price of safety;” and 
grieved as we may feel at the sad stories of administrative 
justice (or rather injustice) to men of cultivated minds and 
genuine patriotism, we can hardly wonder at the panic pre- 
cautions of the police department, when we remember that 
among the real Nihilists there are still men and women who 
will stop at nothing that will enable them—as they call 
it — to regenerate their country. 


CHAPTER XII. 
ALEXANDER IIL. 


S I have said, Alexander III. in the first hours after his 
father’s death might possibly have carried out the late 
czar’s purposes, and have promulgated the wkase authorizing 
an advisory council chosen by the Zemstvos (assemblies 
elected by the people). But he was restrained by advice 
from Ignatieff, the diplomatist, and Katkoff the journalist, 
which advice indeed coincided with his own feelings and 
his most cherished opinions. It was no time for further 
concessions to the spirit of democracy. Alexander II. had 
tried what were called reforms, and he lay a mangled corpse 
as the result. The policy of the Emperor Nicholas was 
best for his grandson to follow. From that moment the 
desire and design of Alexander III. was to counteract the 
reforms set on foot by his father. 

We read in our newspapers upon one column an account 
of the charming manners, the free enjoyment of domestic 
life, the kindliness and the courtesy shown by the present 
emperor during one of his visits to Denmark; on the next 
column we read horrible accounts of cruelties perpetrated 
under his orders against Lutherans, Orthodox Dissenters, 
Polish Catholics, and Jews. We are at a loss to understand 
the contradiction. Yet both accounts are true. Alexander 
III. appears to the world in a double aspect. Born to be 
simply the Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovitch, he was- 
a man of somewhat narrow intellect, but with fine moral 
dispositions, great tenacity of purpose, strict honesty and 
conscientiousness, and real kindness of heart, — all which 
qualities would have made him in private life a happy and 


MEE RORVALLXAANDERAIT: 


boy 10 
“set pee 


a 7 
te ap 
uv \ x 

Os oe ge 


pa alee SUG ae a 


~ LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


- URBANA 


ALEXANDER III. — 283 


most estimable man. Fate made him the autocrat of all 
the Russias, arbiter of the destinies of more than one hundred 
millions of his fellow-creatures ; and God having called him 
to this “‘ state of life,” he has valiantly and conscientiously 
taken up its onerous duties, and endeavors to fulfil them 
according to’ his lights, in obedience to what he conceives 
to be the welfare of his country and the willof Heaven. He 
has no personal ambition, no selfish aims. He has taken his 
grandfather’s motto for his guidance: “ Orthodoxy, auto- 
cracy, and nationality.” On these, if Heaven seconds his 
wish that they should be established in Russia, he builds 
large hopes for her influence and prosperity. In visions he 
sees her in future years all-powerful in eastern Europe, and 
mistress of the Mediterranean, dominating the world by her 
influence, proving to the perfect conviction of all men of 
sense that the Orthodox Faith, having exterminated all dis- 
sent, all atheism, and all Church rivalries, is the one and 
only form of Christianity suited to our race; that autocracy 
is the only government that can repress the devilish aspira- 
tions of democracy; and that Slav civilization — or, as one 
Russian writer triumphantly expresses it, ‘Slavonic bar- 
barism’’ —is meant to dominate the world. 

Alexander III. is not a man of the nineteenth century. 
He hates what we call progress. French ideas, both social 
and political, are repugnant to him. English constitutional- 
ism he believes will bring the British Empire to ruin ; Ger- 
man hair-splitting and discussion he has no patience with. 
His ideas are those of sovereigns and ecclesiastics of the 
seventeenth century. 

In all the ordinary relations of life no man can sustain a 
more estimable character. But while no man is probably 
strong enough to deal decisively with the problems of Rus- 
sian life and government, if any such man exists he is not 
the Emperor Alexander. 

The murder of Alexander II., like that of President 
Lincoln (and indeed like most other murders), was not 
only a crime, it was a blunder. 


284 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


‘¢ Nothing has put Russia further backward,” says the great 
Danish critic, George Brandes, ‘than this occurrence, which 
was pregnant with misfortune. It immediately prevented the 
formation of a sort of parliamentary constitution, which had 
just then been promised; it frightened the successor to the 
crown back from the paths his father had entered upon at the 
beginning of his reign; and it seemed to justify the rulers in 
oppressions and persecutions of every kind.” 


Ivan Aksakoff, the friend of Skobeleff, also wrote thus at 
the close of the first ten months of Alexander III.’s reign : 


“‘Misunderstanding and mistrust have spread like a blight 
over Russia. They have marred the proportion, form, and 
color of all the manifestations of our life. Between the nobility 
and the people, the government and society, the educated and 
the ignorant, nay, even between members of the same classes 
of society, exists distrust and harrowing misunderstanding. 
Everything is out of joint, everything has lost its foundation, 
discontent is everywhere.” 


Along with the dread of new revolutionary crimes arose 
the fear of blind reaction, and the fear of fear. 

The Orthodox Russian Church has added an additional 
sacrament to those in the early Church, or in its Latin 
sister. ‘To baptism, holy communion, confirmation, matri- 
mony, orders, penance, and extreme unction, it has added 
coronation; and the devout spirit of Alexander III. fully 
believed that especial grace to govern would be conferred 
upon him by that ceremony. It was more than two years, 
however, after his father’s death before he braved the dangers 
of being crowned. ‘The ceremony of course was to take 
place at Moscow in the Kremlin. 

A kremlin is, properly speaking, four high walls with 
towers at their corners, originally built up in the centre of a 
city, as a place of refuge in case of an attack by marauding 
Tartars. Many Russian cities have kremlins,— but the 
kremlin par excellence, the one known to all the world, is 
the Kremlin of Moscow. 


1 Russia under Alexander III. 1893. 


ALEXANDER III. 285 


Moscow has been called the Muscovite Rome. It stands 
on seven low hills. It has been partially burnt down more 
than once, and as houses of different styles of construction 
rise after each burning, the effect is extremely picturesque. 
The houses and roofs are of many colors; on gala days 
brilliant carpets and tapestries are hung from the windows. 

May 22, 1883, was the day appointed for the public 
entrance of the imperial family into the Kremlin, where 
etiquette prescribed that they should pass some days before 
the coronation. 

Before daylight the line along which the procession was 
to pass for four miles was lined with soldiers. In order to 
ensure the emperor’s safety the police had taken possession 
of the back doors of all the houses looking on the route, and 
in most cases had nailed them up, that no one in the press 
while the emperor was passing might suddenly rush out and 
throw a bomb. 


“The streets leading to that which was the line of the proces- 
sion were barricaded, and guarded by large bodies of soldiers. 
Only persons provided with an especial passport ticket, and a 
privileged number of chosen peasants who stood behind the 
double line of soldiers, were allowed to remain on the street. 

“The procession started at two P.M.; as it did so, from all 
churches along the line of march came forth priests in robes of 
cloth of gold, who, on altars erected in the street, offered prayers 
for the imperial family, the deacons waving incense, and all the 
church bells (Moscow is famous for its church bells) ringing 
merrily. There had been a rumor that no window was to be 
opened along the line of the procession, and no balcony occu- 
pied, but this proved untrue. Probably it was thought too 
strong a measure, and one that would too openly exhibit the 
alarm felt by the authorities. 

“First came the magnificent Gardes a cheval, in new white 
tunics, shining cuirasses, and silver casques, surmounted by 
gilded double-headed eagles. This corps, the emperor’s body- 
guard, was the one that suffered so fearfully six years before in 
crossing the Balkans, when many frozen dead bodies were col- 
lected in stacks beside the road. 

“Deputations then followed from many guilds and many 


286 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


towns; and then a group of colored men in fantastic dresses, 
styled Arabs of the household of the empress. Then came two 
bodies of imperial huntsmen, palace officials, equerries, etc., in 
open phaetons. 

“Midway in the long stream was the emperor, wearing the 
uniform of a Cossack general, with a Cossack Astrakhan cap. 
He was mounted on a white horse.’’? 


‘‘The pale man on the white horse,” says a writer in the 
London ‘ Spectator,’’ also present on the occasion, ‘‘ who as 
his people shout their devotion, and all the world bends in 
reverence, feels chiefly the necessity of fortitude to await 
what may meet him at the next turning, rides on expecting, 
though probably not fearing, instant execution.” 


“The emperor rode a little in advance of his two sons and the 
Duke of Edinburgh, his brother-in-law. Behind them came all 
sorts and conditions of princes, generals, and aides-de-camp, 
among them the English general, Lord Wolseley, fresh from his 
Egyptian campaign, conspicuous in his scarlet English uniform. 

“Then followed deputations from all the tribes of Central 
Asia that owed fealty to the czar. They rode splendid Turco- 
man horses, and were clad in every color under heaven, green, 
the color of the Prophet, predominating. They had bright 
eyes, and gypsy features, and a peculiar zonchalance of manner, 
which seemed to say that, though they rode in the procession, 
they owed allegiance to no one. The strangest head-dress was 
that of the men of Khiva, which was, first, a very high cap made 
of brown sheepskin, and on top of that a black and red pointed 
hat, like the hat in children’s picture-books of Goody Two 
Shoes. 

‘“‘ After the czar’s procession, but at some distance, followed 
the,czarina’s. The carriages were all glass and gilding, like the 
fairy coaches for queens we dreamed of in our childhood. The 
czarina’s carriage was drawn by eight perfectly white horses in 
gold harness, each horse held by a groom in blue velvet, with a 
casque and white plumes. There sat the empress and her little 
daughter Xenia, eight years old, who was dressed all in white, 
and sat up looking very pale and astonished at the homage paid 


1 From the “Monthly Packet,” December, 1883—an article by 
Mrs. Trench, wife of the military attaché to the English embassy. 


ALEXANDER 171. 287 


them. The empress was arrayed in imperial splendor, and wore 
the official insignia of state. She was very pale. But on her 
bright and animated face there was a smile for every one as she 
bowed right and left. As the procession approached the altars, 
the priests held up the cross, to which all bowed as they drew 
near, 

“ Poor woman! Poor empress! Poor wife and mother! It 
was well known to those behind the scenes that that very morn- 
ing several anonymous letters had been received both by the 
emperor and empress, telling them to prepare for the worst if 
they persisted in going in procession to the Kremlin. Yet there 
sat the empress with a brave smile on her face, though not 
knowing at what moment some desperate attempt might be made 
on the lives of her husband and her sons! Not only did she 
and the emperor receive such letters that morning, but many of 
the attendants who were to form part of the procession, and the 
little pages and postilions who accompanied the empress’s chariot 
received separate letters, warning them that they would never 
reach the Kremlin alive. 

‘“‘ About a dozen gold state carriages followed, filled with ladies 
of the suite, and with grand duchesses. When the emperor had 
entered the Kremlin a gun announced it to the multitude. Then 
the line of soldiers broke up behind the procession, and the 
streets filled again.” 


This public entry into the Kremlin was, however, only pre- 
paratory to the coronation. The dangers of the imperial 
family were by no means over. Every few yards of the 
ground covered by the Kremlin was guarded by a policeman 
or a soldier. 

The Kremlin in Moscow is not, like almost all the other 
kremlins, a square, but a triangle, two miles in extent, and 
surrounded by a handsome red wall. It has five gates ; over 
each is a shrine, and worshippers are at all times to be seen 
kneeling before them in the open air. Within the Kremlin 
are cathedrals, convents, arsenals, and palaces. In the 
inner court indeed there are three cathedrals, none however 
as large as our ordinary city churches, but each has five 
golden domes. 

On Sunday, May 27, 1883, the actual coronation took 
place. The Kremlin was carpeted with red cloth, as it had 


288 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


been for the coronation of Alexander II. Four spaces wer 
railed off for spectators. ‘Two were for soldiers; one for 
peasants; and the other for mechanics, trades-people, and 
their wives. All these had previously had their characters 
thoroughly investigated by the police. 

The Church of the Assumption, in which all emperors are 
crowned, was one glitter of gold. In Russian churches there 
are no seats for worshippers ; so the corps diplomatique and 
their ladies had to stand five hours. ‘The procession of the 
emperor was led by the queen of Greece and the young 
czarevitch, followed by the Grand Duke George and his 
little sister, Xenia. Then came the emperor, very pale, in 
uniform. The choir sang, “ Justice and mercy shall be the 
strength of thy throne,” etc. ‘The empress was very much 
agitated. “I could see,” says the lady whose account I 
am following, ‘that her chest was heaving with emotion ; 
and she was nearly as white as her silver dress. Her pal- 
lor was heightened by her black hair, which was simply 
dressed, with two long curls falling on her shoulders, with- 
out a single ornament.” 

The service began by a Te Deum, exquisitely sung by 
more than one hundred voices, the choristers all clad in 
gold and purple. The czar received the coronation-robe 
from the metropolitan of Moscow, who gave it with the 
words: ‘ Cover and protect thy people as this robe covers 
thee.; 

The emperor crowned himself. The crown was brought 
him on a yellow satin cushion. The archbishop said: “ In 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost.” 

“Tt was with much admiration,” says Mrs. Trench, “ that 
I watched the calm and thoughtful dignity with which the 
emperor lifted the crown from the cushion, and held it for 
a few moments in his hands as if he must reflect, and then, 
turning it round slowly, raised the massive pile of dia- 
monds to his head.” 

No wonder! It was to the emperor a solemn moment. 


ALEXANDER III. : 289 


It was to him a sacramental rite. Not only did he believe 
the crown conferred upon him heavenly grace, but it made 
his person sacred ; and that sacredness was the source of his 
prerogative. The czar is patriarch of the whole Russian 
Church as well as sovereign of the Russian millions; and in 
his consecration a religious function is performed, which, in 
the eyes of the Russian people, is the most important of all 
rites: and as other ceremonials are slow, costly, and mag- 
nificent, it must be slowest, costliest, and most magnificent 
of all. 

When the crown was on the emperor’s head the beauti- 
ful diamond collar of the Order of Saint Andrew was put 
on him ; and when the orb and sceptre were handed to him 
he was invested with all the symbols of his sovereignty. 


“ There was a moment’s silence which well suited the occa- 
sion; for there could not have been any one present whose heart 
was not moved, or whose spirit did not breathe a prayer that 
to the monarch who had just put on the crown —the mighty 
crown of diamonds, yet a very crown of lead, bringing with it 
colossal responsibilities — might be given a double portion of 
grace, wisdom, and power, to enable him to fulfil the duties 
which his high position demanded of him.” 


Then the emperor beckoned to him his wife, who ap- 
proaching knelt down before him on a crimson cushion. 
He lifted the crown from his head, and just for one moment 
placed it upon hers. Her ladies then fastened on a smaller 
crown of diamonds. She continued kneeling, her head rest- 
ing in the flowing robe of her husband’s mantle. When she 
rose, it was observed that she looked calmer. 

The three imperial children, the czarevitch, the Grand 
Duke George, and little Xenia, then pressed around their 
father and mother with congratulations and embraces. After 
them came in turn the whole imperial family. 


“ Prayers then began again, —an exhortation, and the anoint- 
ing, done with a brush of gold and precious stones. The 
emperor afterward received the Communion for the first and 

19 


290 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


only time as a priest, —that is, the bread and wine from the 
paten and the chalice. In Russia the laity receive only bread 
soaked in wine. 

‘“ Then the procession quitted the Cathedral of the Assump- 
tion to visit all the other churches within the Kremlin, a magni- 
ficent baldequin being held over the emperor and empress, 
composed almost entirely of yellow feathers mixed with black 
and white plumes.” 


A banquet and a reception followed. Then the emperor 
and empress dined alone on a raised dais. After they had 
sat an hour at their table, with nothing to eat, the viands 
were brought in, which was the signal for the departure of 
their guests. 

During the evening magnificent balls were given. The 
empress and the Russian ladies all wore the national cos- 
tumes of velvet, pink or blue, the bodice with a long point, 
the sleeves very long and wide. Over the head was worn a 
raised bandeau of velvet, embroidered with pearls and hid- 
ing the hair. To the bandeau is fastened a long veil. It 
must be something like the head-dress worn by Homeric 
women. At the court ball tnere was no dancing, — only a 
procession with partners, called a Polonaise. 

A few days after the coronation some members of the 
English embassy went to the top of a curious structure, 
called Ivan the Great’s Tower. Ivan the architect, not Ivan, 
who had entertained the ambassadors of Queen Elizabeth. 
It consists of five stories, in each of which bells are hung. 
In the first are about thirty bells, the number diminish- 
ing as they go up, till in the fifth there are only two silver 
bells. From this tower they looked down on the imperial 
kitchen, where cooks in white caps were preparing dishes, 
while soldiers stood on guard around them as a precaution 
against poisoning ! 

The fétes closed with a review of forty-five thousand men 
on the oth of June, 1883, having lasted two weeks without 
any contretemps. 

It is said that the Nihilists about this time offered to en- 


ALEXANDER Ill. 291 


gage not to destroy Alexander III. if he would grant a con- 
stitution. The emperor, however, refused to enter into the 
agreement; he had already determined on his course, and 
was at once too brave, too honest, and too obstinate to make 
terms with his enemies. 

There are in the Russian Cabinet ten ministers and five 
assistant-ministers.' These are not servants of the public 
as are ministers in other countries ; they are the czar’s per- 
sonal servants; and their duty is to carry out in their de- 
partments his personal will. When a law is to be made, 
custom and the statute book require that it should be sub- 
mitted to a committee of ministers; if approved by them, 
or rather by a majority, it is passed on to the Imperial 
Council; and if it there secures approval, it is laid before 
the czar, who signs it or not, as it meets his views. 
But sometimes these formalities are dispensed with alto- 
gether, — generally, when the enactment in question is one 
not likely to secure the approval of a majority of the min- 
isters or the council. Such, for instance, was the edict ex- 
pelling the Jews from Moscow, which was decreed without 
asking the advice of ministers or the Imperial Council. It 
was promulgated after a report handed in by the minister 
for foreign affairs, who had been encouraged to take this step 
by the Grand Duke Sergius Alexandrovitch, brother of the 
emperor, — in some respects a reproduction of the Grand 
Duke Constantine Paulovitch of a preceding generation. 

Again, the measure that has done most to undo the 
reforms set on foot after the Emancipation has been that 
which effaced the Zemstvos, or Provincial Assemblies, and 
in their place set over the village communities what are 
called district commanders. ‘This measure, which has pro- 
duced a radical transformation in the entire internal organi- 
zation of the empire, as established twenty years before 
under Alexander II., was signed and made law by Alexander 
III. in opposition to the votes of his ministers and his 
council. 


1 E. B. Lanin, Leisure Hour, 1892, — Statesmen of Europe. 


292 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


The district commander must inevitably be an hereditary 
noble. He is appointed by the government, nor need he be 
in any way connected with the district he is to govern. His 
functions are both those of administrator and judge. His 
duty is to see that no Mir deviates from the way in which it 
should act to suit the emperor’s policy. The agents of the 
district governors are the police. It is the reintroduction 
of a system of centralized bureaucracy into the rural dis- 
tricts, and sets over the emancipated serf two masters, the 
Mir and the commander of the district, in place of his 
hereditary master and the headman of his village. 

Strictly honest himself, the czar has aimed to surround 
himself with men of respectability. A man whose moral 
character will not bear investigation rarely can find favor 
with Alexander III. Talent or administrative capacity are 
secondary considerations. Ministers need not agree with 
each other’s views, and are never called upon to act as a 
cabinet, but each minister or imperial councillor must adopt 
and carry out his master’s views upon three subjects: 
orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality. ‘That ‘ Russia must 
be for the Russians ”’ is a favorite maxim; therefore there 
must be in Russia (which unhappily includes many nations, 
races, and religions) only one faith, the Orthodox Russian 
Church, of which the emperor is the anointed Head. Auto- 
cracy (which means the czar’s will, as set forth by his 
wkases, and carried out by the army of officials through 
which it percolates to his people) must be absolute and 
paramount. Nationality implies that by any means, how- 
ever arbitrary, all the various peoples who dwell under the 
czar’s rule are to be forced to surrender any national insti- 
tutions they have inherited from their ancestors, and are 
to become Russified. To this end the Mir, the Slavonian 
village system, has been forced upon the Poles, the. Finns, 
and the inhabitants of the Baltic Provinces. To this end 
the Jews are to be as speedily as may be wiped out of the 
empire. Lutherans, Catholics, and Orthodox dissenters are 
to be made to feel that they can no longer live comfortably 


ALEXANDER II. 293 


im Holy Russia. It is to be a Slav Empire. Already men 
whose names denote that they are not Slavs by descent, 
even if they have been born Russian subjects, are being 
weeded out of the army and the public service. It is a 
new crusade against modern progress, and Alexander III. 
has taken the cross, and said Dyzew le veult, as sincerely as 
any monarch, knight, or baron in the Middle Ages. 

As I write these things they seem incredible, but they are 
literally true. Western progress means to the Emperor 
Alexander the social immorality of France, her political 
unrest, and her detestable liberalism ; it means the subjec- 
tion of the head of the State in England to such fluctuations 
of public opinion as regulate the action of the British Parlia- 
ment; it means the religious antagonisms of Christian sects 
and churches; it means interminable discussions (which 
the czar hates); it means experiments with things too 
sacred to be touched, —a swift rushing toward the welter- 
ing gulf of atheism and anarchy. While we look upon 
Russia as a country that has already become effete, and is 
on the point of retiring from the page of history, the czar, 
and those who think with him, consider that its destiny is 
to devote itself to its historical mission of destroying the 
culture of the West, and so averting what at present seems 
the doom of the world. 

This would be history all over again, and in the twentieth 
or twenty-first century a new Gibbon would find, materials 
for a new “ Decline and Fall.” 

In Russia there is no public opinion either to oppose or 
to support the emperor’s views, and were this not the case 
Alexander would be wholly indifferent to public opinion. 
He intends to do his duty as he sees it; to die if need be 
as a martyr to his duty, which is to enforce on Russia the 
three things already mentioned, — “ autocracy, orthodoxy, 
and nationality,” in which he sees the will of God, and 
salvation not only for his own country, but possibly here- 
after the regeneration of the world. 

As there is no representative body in Russia to divide 


294. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


politicians into parties, and in point of fact no politicians to 
divide, it is very hard to classify the different shades of 
thought pervading society, but rarely finding public expres- 
sion within the limits of Russia. Perhaps they may be 
roughly divided into six classes : peasant opinion ; Nihilism ; 
liberal opinion ; Slavophilism ; Pan-Slavism ; and the opinion 
of the emperor. 

All our information about Russia seems so very vague 
that modern writers do not even agree as to its population. 
Some estimate it at one hundred and ten millions, some at 
one hundred millions, some at ninety millions, some at 
eighty millions. All these statements I have found in writ- 
ings apparently speaking with authority upon the subject, 
in the last five years. But whatever the millions more or 
less may be, it is probably an overestimate to say that not 
more than ten millions of the czar’s subjects have any polit- 
ical views.. The mass of the people believe in the czar, 
obey his police, grumble at their condition when misfortune 
seems to come upon them from local injustice on the part 
of their communities, but whatever appears to have come 
upon them directly from the hand of God, or the will of 
the emperor, as manifested through his representatives, is 
accepted with submission. 

Secondly we have Nihilists, bound together in a secret 
society to effect destruction. Their doctrine for the future, 
so far as Ahey have set it forth, is universal brotherhood. 
Their motto might be “Liberty, Fraternity, —or Death.” 
Love for country, love for family, rights of property, are 
among the things to be done away. Their number cannot 
be very great, but their works are deeds of darkness ; and not 
being restrained by laws of conscience, such as regulate the 
hearts and lives of other men, they are dangerous unspeak- 
ably. A counter organization was at one time formed 
among the young nobility of Russia, to which Prince Demi- 
dorff (the husband of Princess Mathilde) contributed large 
funds. It was a secret society intended to detect Nihilists, 
and to circumvent their plots, but it was soon found that 


ALEXANDER Ill. 295 


amateur detectives fell into such mistakes that the Emperor 
Alexander III. put an end to it. 

Thirdly, there is a class of liberal thinkers who cannot 
be classed with Nihilists, — men who would have been fol- 
lowers of Loris Melikoff, and have labored for reform ; but 
who now, driven to secrecy, groaning under their own im- 
potence, and resenting repression, have among them those 
who carry liberal theories to an impracticable extreme, and 
find occasion to express their feelings in intemperate lan- 
guage through the press of foreign countries. ‘They suffer 
themselves abroad to be classed with Nihilists, and share 
the fate of Nihilists at home when they fall into the hands 
of the police. ‘Their sentiments range from those of the 
statesman and reformer to those of extreme demagogues. 
All forbidden fruit has for them an attraction; and, alas, 
fruits the most wholesome, as well as the most poisonous, are 
forbidden in Russia. Among these liberals may be classed 
those who hold eccentric, communistic, philanthropic opin- 
ions, like Count Leo Tolstoi, who owes his protection from 
the police to the interest the emperor is said to take in 
his writings. The only novel of his that the emperor has 
disapproved was the “ Kreutzer Sonata,’ which he placed 
under the ban. He subsequently removed that ban, and 
repented it afterward. 

Fourthly, we have those who are called Slavophils, — 
fanatics for the restoration of old Muscovite Russia. Their 
stronghold is Moscow, the ancient capital. They look on 
Peter the Great as the worst enemy of his country, he hav- 
ing introduced into it Western culture and Western ideas. 
They have no sympathy with Slavs outside of Russia. They 
care nothing for the Russification of outlying provinces. 
Slavs must be’ born, not made, is’ their motto. “They 
would like to see the old Russian dress resumed, and old 
Russian manners. ‘They care nothing for foreign litera- 
ture or for the classics. Old Russian literature alone is to 
be cultivated. 

Fifthly, there are the Pan-Slavists, who desire to unite all 


296 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Slav races into one federated empire, of which Russia 
shall be the head, as Prussia is of Germany. A Slavophil, 
Ivan Aksakoff, writes thus of the Pan-Slavists, and their 
notions: ‘I and my relatives do not believe in Pan-Slavism, 
— nay, we consider it impossible ; firstly, because it would 
require the adoption of a single faith by all the Slav races ; 
and the Catholicism of Bohemia and Poland would bring a 
hostile foreign element into our community, which could 
not be amalgamated with the orthodox faith of the other 
Slavs; secondly, because the individual elements of the 
Slavonic nations must previously be dissolved and fused 
into a differently characterized, more powerful, more united, 
and mighty nationality, — namely, the Russian ; thirdly, be- 
cause a large part of the Slavonic races is already infected 
by the influence of barren Western liberalism, which con- 
flicts with the spirit of Russian orthodoxy. Russia is far more 
to me than all the Slavs. We have been reproached with 
indifference to all Slavs outside the Russian kingdom ; nay, 
outside Greater Russia.” To this the Emperor Nicholas 
appended an autograph note on the MS.: “And he is 
right; for everything else is madness. God alone can 
determine what is to happen in the far future. Even if 
every circumstance should combine to lead up to this (the 
Pan-Slavic) union, its accomplishment would be the ruin of 
Russia.’’?? Nevertheless, Pan-Slavism has great hold on the 
mass of educated Russians; but it is not the idea of the 
emperor. His opinions, and those who follow him, we 
class as sixthly. He has no wish to govern over a federa- 
tion of Slav peoples, of whom the greater part would be 
little in sympathy with Holy Russia, and who, like the 
people of our own States, would have constitutions, legisla- 
tures, laws, and customs of their own. He wishes to be 
autocrat over all Russia, — to Russify his outlying provinces, 
to extend his power to the Pacific Ocean, to strengthen 
orthodoxy. ‘Russia for the Russians,’’— is a maxim he 


1 Russia under Alexander III.; translated from Von Samson 
Himmelstierna. 


ALEXANDER III. 207 


believes in; and he is wholly disinclined to admit non- 
Russians, even if they may be Slavs, into what he desires 
should be a close corporation, as exclusive as Dr. Francia 
made Paraguay, or Cotton Mather and Winthrop would 
_ gladly have made their colony in New England. 

The private habits of Alexander III. are of the simplest 
kind. Discussion or representations, I have said, he par- 
ticularly dislikes; and his intercourse with his ministers is 
largely carried on in writing, chiefly by brief remarks made 
on the margin of the reports submitted to him. These 
reports, he requires, should be very brief. The only per- 
sons who feel it likely they can obtain a hearing, when of- 
fering him opinions in opposition to his own, are his 
connections, the Danish king and queen. ‘The queen 
made repeated attempts to influence “ Uncle Sasha” in 
favor of the Lutherans in the Baltic Provinces ; “she might 
have spent her time as profitably in reasoning with the 
Egyptian Sphinx.” On one occasion, after her Majesty and 
her consort had exhausted their eloquence and their stock 
of facts, the czar replied dryly: “I, a born Russian, find it 
a difficult task to govern my people from Gatchina, which, 
as you know, is in Russia ; and now do you really fancy that 
you, who are foreigners, can rule them more successfully 
from Copenhagen?” ? 

The same writer tells us : — 


‘Those who accuse the emperor of cruelty wrong the man, 
and misconstrue his acts. . . . His intentions have never been 
called in question by those who are competent to sit in judg- 
ment on his conduct. He has granted their lives to many men 
who risked them in dastardly attempts to take his own; and 
there are depths of tenderness in his soul which even most of his 
ministers do not suspect; and if his people are none the better 
for them, the fault cannot be entirely laid upon his shoulders, 
but must be added to the mountains of wrong that may never 
be rightly apportioned. . . . Alexander III. has never regarded 
his kingly office as anything but a heavy burden, which personal 
inclination, as well as common prudence, imperatively urged him 


1 E. B. Lanin, Contemporary Review. 


298 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


to shake off; and he richly deserves all the credit attaching to 
the mistaken sense of religious duty which makes him disregard 
his own happiness, and the manly courage which he has opposed 
to considerations of his own safety.” 


The person whose indirect influence has been of most 
importance to the emperor has been his former tutor, M. 
Probédonostzeff. He has elevated this gentleman to an 
office which corresponds to that of minister of worship in 
France, and has given him a seat in the Cabinet. “ His 
influence,” says the writer who has described all the states- 
men of Europe in a series of articles in the “Leisure 
Hour,” “ almost overshadows the throne. More than half 
the existing ministers owe their nomination, more or less 
directly, to his influence.” Without being in the least 
“a religious enthusiast, he is convinced that he has been 
called of God to save Russia from that breaking up into 
rival creeds which exists in the rest of Europe. To him 
Russia is a church ; she is primarily a religious communion, 
and only secondarily a secular community. He holds that 
the Church saved Russia in the past, and that the sacred 
duty which history has bequeathed to the Russian govern- 
ment as the first of all its duties is to safeguard the ortho- 
dox Church against anything that should menace its security 
and unity.” Imbued by such ideas, and supported by the 
emperor, he has in his new office every opportunity of car- 
rying into effect the religious persecutions undertaken at 
his instigation; ‘“‘and never has superstitious religion, as 
distinguished from real religion, been so rife in the empire 
as it is now.” 

The czar lives principally at Gatchina, having a great dis- 
like to residing at St. Petersburg, where what little liberty 
he can enjoy in his well-watched country-home is curtailed 
by the precautions of the police. When at St. Petersburg 
he occupies apartments in the Anitchkoff Palace, avoiding 
the Winter Palace, the scene of his father’s death and of 
several explosions. When residing at Gatchino, where he 
has selected for himself the worst suite of rooms in the 


ALEXANDER III. 299 


palace, “he rises at seven, takes a quiet stroll in the unin- 
teresting grounds of the park, returns to early breakfast, 
and engages in some severe manual labor as preparation 
for the official work of the day.” He is unusually strong, 
having been known in his young days to bend a bar of iron 
across his knee. He is so much a prisoner that all forms 
of exercise taken for healthful amusement by country 
gentlemen are denied him, and he has to invent bodily 
labor for himself. “ He unhesitatingly puts his hand to 
any kind of work that has to be done; but his usual 
occupation is to fell trees, to saw them into planks, to plane 
them, and generally to prepare them for the cabinet-maker. 
In winter the gardeners have strict orders not to clear away 
the snow from the avenues and walks of the park, which is 
invariably left for his Majesty, who, attired in a short gray 
jacket, shovels it up into enormous mounds, and then trans- 
fers it toa cart. It occasionally happens, when he cannot 
complete the task he has set himself within the time at his 
disposal, that his children lend him their assistance and cart 
away the snow to aremote part of the grounds.” ! 

Alexander dislikes horseback exercise; and, indeed, it 
would expose him to too many dangers. He is said to be 
nervous even when driving; and no wonder, for regicides 
have commonly found their best opportunity when their 
victim was in a carriage. 

Alexander III. takes gréat interest in Russian Picton 
particularly in what relates to its romance, and has even 
established in his palace an historical society, which meets 
several times during the winter, and of which he is presi- 
dent. The amusement he takes most pleasure in is the 
opera. For martial manceuvres he has little taste. As 
czarevitch he did conscientious service at the head of a 
corps d’armée in the war of 1877; but the “ pride, pomp, 
_and circumstance of glorious war” have little attraction for 
him. This greatly impairs his popularity with his army, 
which is said to be not wholly well affected to its sovereign. 


1 FE. B. Lanin, Contemporary Review. 


300 RUSSIA AND TURKEY (N THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Indeed, in March, 1887, on the same day of the year and 
on the spot where his father had been murdered, some 
young Cossacks of the Don were arrested, who were about 
to throw a bomb under his carriage as he was returning 
from a mass held for the repose of his father’s soul. Very 
recently a mutiny,among the Cossacks in southern Russia 
has been reported in our newspapers; but the details of 
all such outbreaks and of attempts on the czar’s life are now 
withheld from the public as much as possible. 

No wonder that sad experience has taught the czar to 
distrust human nature. Here are a few facts reported by 
an already quoted writer : — 

“Having put his trust in a minister who was also a soldier, 
he had the chagrin to discover, later on, that to that apparently 
frank soldier truth was stranger than fiction.! He made a com- 
panion of another general, with whom, during the Turkish War, 
he had been wont to play interminable games of chess; and 
scarcely had he placed the crown upon his head than he was 
called upon to sign the sentence banishing that same general 
to Siberia, for having, at the very time when he used to play 
chess with his future sovereign, taken an. active part in an 
infamous conspiracy to starve the wretched soldiery, and put 
the money intended for their rations into his pocket. ... He 
has seen a trusted minister, whose solid reputation rested on his 
zeal to spread Orthodoxy and root out Catholicism, convicted of 
robbing widows and orphans of the millions destined to alleviate 
their lot, and then commit suicide to escape from justice. . 
He has absolute confidence in no man, and for the objects of 
his trust must look to God and to the narrow circle of his own 
immediate family.” 


In judging Alexander III. we are apt to forget that he is 
a born Russian, — nay, that there is much of the mowzk in 
his composition. He partakes the national characteristics 
of his people, — their fatalism, their spirit of submission 
to the divine will, their stolid apathy, which is seldom 
aroused except by religious emotion. But sobriety and. 
honesty are virtues all his own. 


1 Probably General Ignatieff, the diplomat, whose nickname in 
Turkey was “the Father of Lies.” 


EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
UREANA 


ALEXANDER [I11. 301 


The empress devotes herself to her duties as a mother 
and a wife. Her duties as an empress seem to consist 
chiefly in giving a tone to good society. On her devolve 
the social obligations of the crown. To promote frivolity 
among the upper classes of St. Petersburg is to turn away 
their thoughts from dangerous things. The emperor dis- 
likes all kinds of social “ functions.’’ His State Balls must 
close some hours earlier than those given by his subjects. 
He himself always takes an early dinner, unless obliged to 
entertain guests at his table. When he drives out, the em- 
press almost always accompanies him, preferring to share his 
danger rather than anticipate it at home. 

The imperial pair have five children: the Czarevitch 
Nicholas, the Grand Duke George, the universally praised 
and admired Grand Duchess Xenia, who is now grown to 
womanhood, Michael, and Olga, who are children still. 
None of these young people have yet been married; but 
the czarevitch has been betrothed to Princess Alice of 
Hesse-Darmstadt, granddaughter of Queen Victoria. It is 
said that the health of the elder grand dukes gives their 
_ parents cause for uneasiness. There is consumption in the 
family through their grandmother, Marie of Darmstadt. 

The other members of the imperial family are the Grand 
Duke Michael Nicholaivitch, uncle of the emperor, and his 
wife, a princess of Baden. He has a family of seven chil- 
dren, — six sons and a daughter, — but takes no part in 
political life. He made at one time an excellent governor 
in the Caucasus. 

His brother, the Grand Duke Constantine Nicholaivitch, 
now dead, was a man of considerable accomplishments, who 
will be missed at St. Petersburg in artistic and literary 
circles. He died of a lingering and painful illness a few 
years since, and left three sons. The two younger, Con- 
stantine and Dimitri, are the emperor’s aides-de-camp ; 
the eldest is the young prince who some years ago made a 
scandal by stealing his mother’s jewels that he might bestow 
them on an American courtesan. He has been banished 


302 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


to a military post in the Caucasus, whence he is not likely to 
return. 

The emperor’s sister is Marie, Duchess of Edinburgh. 
His brothers are the Grand Dukes Vladimir, Sergius, Alexis, 
and Paul. 

Both Vladimir and Sergius married ladies who were not 
of the orthodox Church. The Grand Duchess Maria Pau- 
lovna, a princess of Mecklenberg, retains her Lutheran faith ; 
but the wife of the Grand Duke Sergius, zee Princess Eliza- 
beth of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of the lamented English 
Princess Alice, has succumbed to the pressure put upon her, 
and joined the national church of Russia. 

The Grand Duke Vladimir keeps aloof from political 
affairs. The Grand Duke Sergius, who is at present gov- 
ernor of Moscow, is a bitter persecutor of the Jews,—a 
man of notoriously brutal character, and unfaithful in his 
conjugal relations. 

The Grand Duke Alexis is unmarried. He is in the 
navy, and a few years ago came to the United States, where 
he made himself extremely popular, especially among the 
ladies. He lives as little as possible in Russia, and takes 
no part in political affairs. The Grand Duke Paul, who 
was very young at the time of his father’s death, married 
his cousin, the Grecian Princess Alexandra, who has died 
recently. 


NoTE. — Since this chapter was written, the emperor, in June, 
1893, has appointed Sergius Julevitch Witte his minister of finance. 
This gentleman was born in the Caucasus in 1849, where his father 
was a member of the Caucasus Government Council. Witte has 
been in the public service since the age of twenty-one, and wherever 
employed has distinguished himself by ability, honesty, and great 
success in achieving reforms in various branches of administration. 
A Russian writer is reported to have said of him: “ He is of strong 
character, and has by his bluntness gained the czar’s confidence. 
Practically he has the reins of government in his own hands.” 


CHAPTER XIII: 


SIBERIA. —— CENTRAL ASJA;——THE BALTIC” PROVINCES, —— THE 
PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 


HERE have been no picturesque events to brighten 
the reign of Alexander III. All is gloomy, hopeless, 
painful, as indeed seems to me the character of Russian re- 
ligion, Russian history, Russian life, Russian literature, and 
Russian art. Besides what I have related there remains to 
tell something about Siberia and its exiles ; something about 
the Russian advance in Central Asia; something about the 
two stupendous railroads which before the close of this 
nineteenth century may connect St. Petersburg with the 
Pacific ; something about the Russification, political, social, 
and religious of the unhappy Baltic Provinces, with brief 
allusions to the recent famine and the persecution of the 
Jews. 

None of these are cheerful subjects, if we except the 
magnificent conception and execution of the engineering 
work across the continent of Asia, but our story would be 
incomplete if they were left without allusion. 

The subject connected with Russia that has probably for 
every foreigner the most interest is the condition of the ex- 
iles of Siberia; and popular interest in it has been recently 
stimulated by the papers published in the “Century” by 
Mr. Kennan, and the lectures he has given in various cities. 

Mr. Kennan is a gentleman who, after some years resi- 
dence in Russia and acquaintance with its language, formed 
the idea in 1879 of writing upon exile in Siberia. His first 
papers, like those of an American clergyman who about 


304. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


the same time visited the Russian penal colonies and pris- 
ons, were to the effect that the horrors of the subject had 
been greatly exaggerated. In this spirit he made a report to 
the New York Geographical Society, which paper disposed 
the Russian government in his favor, so that he received 
letters from Count Dimitri Tolstoi, then minister of the in- 
terior, which enabled him and an artist, Mr. Frost, to travel, 
unmolested by the police, through Siberia, to examine its 
prisons, to talk freely with the officials and the exiles, and 
to bring back to readers in the Western world the fullest 
information. 

In considering this subject we must first disabuse our- 
selves of several ideas which we have probably held from 
infancy, — to begin with, that Siberia is a land of perpetual 
snow and ice, barren and inhospitable. ‘ You could take,” 
says Mr. Kennan, “the whole of the United States, from 
Maine to California, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of 
Mexico, and set it down in the middle of Siberia without 
touching its borders. You could then take Alaska, and all 
the countries of Europe, except Russia, and fit them in like 
pieces of a dissected map round the edges of the United 
States as it lay in the middle of Siberia, and you would still 
have left more than three hundred thousand square miles of 
Siberian territory.” 

In this vast region there is every variety of climate, from 
arctic to tropical; the beauty of the scenery, the magnifi- 
cence of the rivers, and above all, the wonderful brilliancy 
and variety of its flowers, continually strike wonder and 
admiration into travellers. It is a land full of raw materials 
for wealth, and is being opened up rapidly by steam naviga- 
tion, and by railroads. 

Another usual idea is that the exiles of Siberia are all 
political exiles. This is very far from being the case. Each 
village community — the Mir (now presided over by the 
district governor and the government police) —has a right 
to banish to Siberia any member of its community whom it 
wishes to get rid of. A man incapable of work through 


SIBERTA,: ETC. 305 


drunkenness ; a man who does not pay his share of the com- 
mune’s taxes; a man who has become a bad character, or 
made himself in any way obnoxious to his commune, — may 
by its decree be banished to Siberia; and his wife and chil- 
dren may go with him, partly at the expense of the govern- 
ment, partly at that of his village. There is no appeal. If 
the Mir decides to banish him, go he must. 

Another class of persons sent to Siberia, and the most 
numerous, are criminals convicted in local courts of various 
offences. They are treated with more rigor than those sim- 
ply exiled from their villages, are not given land on their 
arrival in Siberia, and, if great criminals, they are sent to 
the mines. 

A third popular idea is that all the political exiles are 
Nihilists. This is by no means the case. They are divided 
into two classes: those condemned for crimes in connec- 
tion with politics, who have been tried by juries ; and those 
exiled by what is called administrative process, namely, per-. 
sons arrested without trial, without crime, on mere suspi- 
cion of holding opinions that may become dangerous to the 
peace and order of the State. The political criminals go to: 
the mines, far away in Eastern Siberia, where no pains de- 
scribed in the Inferno can exceed their wretchedness. If. 
any become utterly unmanageable, they are sent to the 
Island of Saghalien lying north of Japan; and no one, so. 
far as I am aware, has ever escaped from that prison island 
to tell its secrets to the Western World. 

Those arrested by administrative process are settled in. 
various villages, and allowed to enjoy personal freedom, 
though closely watched by officials; and they are generally 
very poor. Some have their families with them; some are: 
young girls who have imbibed heated notions from their un-. 
ripe higher education. These are the exiles with whom 
Mr. Kennan chiefly associated, and whom he found mostly: 
cultivated and agreeable gentlemen and ladies. 

Noblemen are a privileged class, even in Siberia. They 
travel in carriages, while the ruder exiles march chained, 

20 


306 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


and on foot. Boats are now being constructed to mitigate 
the hardships of this journey, e” aftendan¢t the completion 
of the Siberian railway. By these boats it is hoped to trans- 
port the exiles from some port on the White Sea to the 
great rivers Obi, Yenesei, or Lena, which, after traversing 
Siberia, empty into the Arctic Ocean. Some persons who 
have seen these boats in process of construction have been 
shocked to find a large part of their decks converted into a 
great cage, but this seems a far more humane method of 
transportation than the land journey. ‘The plan of having 
barges similarly constructed and towed by steamers has 
long been adopted on the Volga, and Messrs. Kennan and 
Frost, as they approached Siberia by the great city of 
Nishni-Novgorod, met many parties of exiles, for the most 
part banished. by the Mir, and accompanied by their 
families. 

From Nishni-Novgorod (not the city of the Norsemen who 
founded the first civilized empire in Russia) the travellers pro- 
ceeded to Perm at the foot of the Ural Mountains. There, 
taking the Ural railroad they found excellent stations and 
European cookery. As they reached the summit of the 
Ural Mountains — snow-covered and dreary as we all have 
imagined them — ‘the sun was shining brightly in an 
unclouded sky, the morning air was cool, fresh, and laden 
with the odor of flowers and the resinous fragrance of 
mountain pines; a cuckoo was singing in a neighboring 
grove of birches, and a glory of early summer was over all 
the earth. . . . As the train swept on it passed over miles 
and miles where there was not a sign of human life, then 
past placer mining camps, where men and women were 
washing for gold. Sometimes we came out into beautiful 
park-like openings, diversified by clumps of graceful silver 
birches, and carpeted with turf almost as smooth and green 
as an English lawn. Flowers were everywhere abundant. 
Roses, dandelions, violets, wild strawberries, and lilies of 
the valley were in blossom all along the track, and occa- 
sionally we crossed a glade in the heart of the forest where 


SIBERIA, ETC. 307 


the grass was almost hidden by a vivid sheet of yellow 
lilies.” Such passages as this abound in Mr. Kennan’s 
narrative. 

The imperial ukase commanding the construction of the 
trans-Siberian railroad was signed May 19, 1891. The 
railroad was at once commenced at both ends; the western 
end has reached the River Tobol, a branch of the Obi, 
while the eastern end, in March, 1893, starting from Vladi- 
vostok, a place so strongly fortified as to be a sort of 
Sebastopol on the Sea of Japan, has been completed to 
Graffskaya on the Amoor, a distance of four hundred versts, 
or about two hundred and twenty-five miles, at a cost of 
sixty thousand roubles a verst, or about thirty thousand dol- 
lars per mile. The discovery of large fields of coal, both 
bituminous and anthracite, much of it of very fine quality, 
and some of it smokeless, will be of inestimable advantage 
to the new railroad. The coal is being rapidly mined, and 
much of it is within easy reach of Vladivostok. The Rus- 
sian government has already expended vast sums on the 
most improved coal-mining machinery; for this supply of 
fuel is not only of vast importance to the railroad, but to 
the war-steamers on the Pacific. Before this century closes 
we may see a line of steamers in the merchant service, run- 
ning from Vladivostok to San Francisco, touching at Japan 
and at the Sandwich islands, and opening new channels for 
trade. ‘Over six thousand men are steadily employed on 
the railroad at its eastern end, only four hundred of whom 
have been imported from Russia; eight hundred are crimi- 
nal convicts from the mines, four hundred and fifty are 
exiles under police supervision” (in other words banished 
by administrative process), ‘two thousand are Chinese 
laborers, and two thousand five hundred are regular Rus- 
sian soldiers.’”’?4 But there has been trouble among the 
laborers, the soldiers have refused to work with the crim- 
inals. The imported Russians clamored for more pay. 
The convicts escaped in considerable numbers, and formed 


1 Cosmopolitan Magazine, M. Gribayédoff. March, 1893. 


308 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


predatory bands which roamed the country, and kept the 
governor’s hands fully employed in hunting them down. 

In June, 1885, however, Mr. Kennan and Mr. Frost, after 
crossing the Ural Mountains had to proceed on their jour- 
ney in a ¢arrantas, a sort of boat on wheels. It had no 
thwarts, and they sat on their luggage. Soon they began 
to pass parties of exiles on the march. More than one 
hundred and seventy thousand had travelled that road since 
1878, and more than half a million since the beginning of 
the century. 

The prisons, and the é/afes, or stations where the exiles 
were halted on their march, were found to be awfu/. The 
great receiving prison at Tieumen was built to hold eight 
hundred; when Mr. Kennan saw it it contained one 
thousand seven hundred and forty-one. As we read his 
terrible accounts of the filth, the sickness, and above all 
the smells, we have only the consolation of reminding our- 
selves that perhaps to the Russian peasant these things are 
not so intolerable as they would be to an American. 

In the year 1885 fifteen thousand seven hundred and 
sixty-six persons passed the boundary of Siberia as exiles; 
of these, fifteen hundred were criminals, or hard labor con- 
victs ; twenty-six hundred and fifty-nine had been convicted 
of minor offences, and were not sentenced to hard labor in 
the mines; about six thousand were banished men and 
women, of whom thirty-seven hundred were exiled by the 
Mir; seventeen hundred and nineteen were deported as 
being tramps ; and five hundred and fifty (of whom seventy- 
eight were were women) were banished by administrative 
process as political exiles. Besides these, there were fifty- 
five hundred and thirty-six men, women, and children 
accompanying their relatives. The exiles by administrative 
process were, however, not all political offenders. Many 
were exiles, who, having finished their first terms of banish- 
ment, were refused reinstation in their village communities, 
and were sent back to Siberia by the police. 

In 1885 the long journeys on foot involved terrible suf- 


SIBERIA, ETC. 309 


fering, especially to women and children. Among the 
political exiles Mr. Kennan and his friend found many 
who had apparently been exiled through pure misunder- 
standing. ‘The police, often ignorant and full of restless 
zeal, turned anything into a dangerous proof of disaffection ; 
and no doubt there is abundant disaffection in all the 
educated classes in Russia. With Nihilists plotting all 
kinds of atrocities, it is very hard to blame the rude zeal 
of ignorant officials; yet Skobeleff we know so hated and 
despised the government police that he always turned his 
back on any man who had entered it out of his own divi- 
sion. Mr. Kennan relates many sad stories ; many instances 
of flagrant injustice and oppression. One of the exiles 
whom he met had been a lieutenant in the navy, who 
accompanied the Grand Duke Alexis when he visited this 
country. In a basket on his table were cards of invitation 
to many of the best houses in New York, where, a year or 
two before, he had danced gayly and enjoyed himself. 

Some of the administrative exiles were literary men; one 
was anovelist whose works have been translated in America ; 
some were young girls who had been studying medicine ; 
some were editors, reviewers, and professional men. 

They lived in log cabins very poorly furnished, but most 
of them had books. Mill, Darwin, Buckle, and Spencer 
were apparently great favorites, and were read in the 
original. 

The exiles have been described by a Russian official as 
“quiet, orderly, reasonable human beings. We certainly,” 
he added, “have no trouble with them here. Our govern- 
ment treats them with great kindness and consideration, 
and, so far as I know, they are good citizens.” 

The governor of Archangel in 1883 reported to his 
government that ‘from the experience of previous years, 
and from my own personal observation, I have come to the 
conclusion that administrative exile for political reasons is 
much more calculated to spoil the character of a man than 
to reform it. The transition from a life of comfort to a life 


310 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


of poverty, from a social life to a life in which there is no 
society, and from a life of activity to compulsory inaction, 
produces such ruinous consequences that not unfrequently 
we find the political exiles going insane and committing 
suicide. ‘There has not been a single case in which a man 
suspected with good reason of political untrustworthiness, 
and exiled by administrative process, has returned from 
such banishment reconciled to the government, convinced 
of his error, and changed into a useful member of society 
and a faithful servant of the throne.” | 

Escape, to a certain extent, seems frequent, — but few 
of those who escape ever get alive beyond the bounds of 
Siberia. As a soldier said to one who was recaptured: 
“The czar’s cow-pasture is large, but there is no getting 
OULIOR IES, 

From time to time French, English, and American 
magazines give accounts of exiles who have escaped from 
Siberia; these seldom complain of personal ill-treatment 
from Siberian officials; on the contrary, the higher officials 
seem to exhaust themselves in making reports, probably far 
from agreeable to the czar, advising better accommodation 
in the prisons, better clothing, better hospitals, etc., — reports 
which, when they reach St. Petersburg are rarely attended 
to. Let us trust that improved means of transportation will 
diminish the worst horrors of the system. 

If we look at the matter from the point of view taken by 
political malcontents, who can blame them for aspirations 
after better things, — though where the materials for political 
betterment are to come from, who can say? And when 
driven frantic by the oppressions of the police, by the im- 
prisonment of friends, and all the rest, who shall blame 
them if they look on Nihilists with a more lenient eye than 
we can? As a Russian, tried in 1881 for one of the 
attempts on Alexander II.’s life, said of a comrade: “‘ He 
was not very well inclined to the terrorizing system, and 
had but lately joined it, moved solely by a revengeful and 
embittered feeling toward the government, in consequence 


MIDERIA, BTC. 3.01 


of a long series of cruel persecutions, which had impressed 
him the more deeply that some of those who had suffered 
were his associates and friends.” 

We may indeed thus palliate the criminality of such acts, 
but nothing can mitigate their unwisdom. The men and 
women who destroyed the emperor-liberator shattered the 
dawning hope of better days for their own country. Russia 
indeed at the time of Alexander’s death seems to have 
been politically and socially in a state of wild disorder ; but 
we all know by experience that when we begin to set our 
house in order the first result is dust and general confusion. 

I will close this part of my subject with what a Russian 
lady says of the possible ultimate fate of some of these 
political exiles, so deeply and so justly pitied by Mr. 
Kennan, and through his representations, by ourselves. It 
throws a somewhat brighter light upon a lurid picture : 1 


“ Let us follow those whose doom is heaviest. Few of them, 
probably none, will end their allotted time at the mines or the 
State factories. Anuntimely death will doubtless end the suffer- 
ings of many before the tardy hand of mercy can reach them. 
Yet, wonderful to say, many more survive the horrors of the first 
years than would seem possible for men of gentle nurture and 
unhardened body. If they are resigned, and quietly behaved, 
they will, after a while, — three, four, or five years, — instead of 
the fifteen or twenty of their sentence, be brought under one of 
the so-called ‘gracious manifestoes’ which are always being 
issued on occasions of birthdays, marriages, etc., in the imperial 
family. They will then be transferred to some one of the con- 
vict colonies, from which in due time they will be released in 
like manner, and allowed to live within some particular rural 
district at a great distance from any city or town, and under 
strict surveillance of the local police. Gradually the range 
widens till it comprises district towns, the surveillance is light- 
ened; at last the capital of the government itself is opened to 
the half-pardoned convict, and with it society, and resources of 
every kind. It now depends in a great measure on himself, on 
his good sense and abilities, to shape his further fortunes. Men 
of education, and scientific or technical attainments, are in as 


1 International Review. 


312 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


great demand (and for the same reasons) in the Far East of 
Russia as in the Far West of America; and when, by the end of 
ten or twelve years, as is generally the case, and after having 
been previously transferred to the more populous and civilized 
western governments, the political convict is restored to his 
rank and privileges, freed from all disabilities and finally recalled 
from banishment, it is by no means rare to see him return to 
the shores of Lake Baikal of his own free will, to settle there for 
life. I have known such, —lawyers, physicians, engineers, 
miners, able and energetic men. . . . One young lawyer in par- 
ticular I remember. He was a little over thirty, sturdy of frame, 
and keen of look. He had come to St. Petersburg to assert his 
newly recovered rights and to transact some business, but all 
his thoughts were centred on a speedy return to Irkoutsk, where 
he had left a promising practice, some half-started ventures in a 
mining enterprise, and, as he almost hinted, a fairer attraction. 
Such political exiles as are not deprived of their liberty have of 
course all the more chances in their favor. The intercession of 
friends at home also does much to shorten their term and 
hasten their return to cities, or more favorable regions, if they 
behave judiciously, and have not the ill-luck’ of exceptionally 
falling under the rule of some of those ignorant and wantonly 
brutal officials whose number is diminishing every year. My 
object is by no means to palliate the horrors of the penal sen- 
tence known as ‘hard labor in the mines.’ The removal from 
the midst of civilization, from all old ties, and intellectual 
communion, the civil death which it entails, the rigid climate, 
the unwonted physical labor and coarse food, the daily, hourly 
association with real malefactors, many of them hardened 
wretches sunk to the lowest depths of degradation, — all these 
are features doubtless terrible enough; but it should be borne in 
mind that this heaviest penalty is but sparingly inflicted on 
‘politicals,’ and that the victims are not debarred from hope in 
better times.” 


All the world knows Russia’s passionate and not unrea- 
sonable desire to reach the sea. The Baltic can be closed 
to her ships by the Scandinavians, her outlet by the Black 
Sea is blocked by Constantinople. The Arctic Ocean is 
shut in by ice. She has only the eastern coast of Siberia, 
with which the great trans-Siberian railroad will connect 
her ; and it is supposed that if she cannot get Constantinople 


SIBERIA, ETC. ar3 


she is aiming to indemnify herself by gaining communica- 
tion with the Persian Gulf. But Russia proceeds warily. 
In Central Asia in eight years ‘‘ Russian soldier-engineers 
have taken a bold flight through tracts which it was asserted 
they could never reach, and have laid down nine hundred 
miles of rails, uniting Krasnovodsk on the Caspian with 
‘silken Samarcand.’ ‘They have crossed the sand steppes 
to the north of Persia, skirted the northern slopes of 
the mountain ridge that forms the northern boundary of 
Persia, reached Merv by rail, a place that twenty years ago 
was considered inaccessible, and whose history goes back 
into pre-Christian times ; they have planted their rails upon 
the quivering, shifting sands which almost fill the horrid 
space from Merv to the Oxus, thrown a bridge over its 
yellow floods, and passing near Bokhara ‘the holy’ have 
prolonged the path of the ‘ devil’s cart,’ into the heart of a 
country once rich and prosperous, and have set up their 
terminus at Samarcand near the tomb of Timour.” } 

Between Persia and British India lies Afghanistan, a 
“land of the mountain and the flood,’ — the Highlands 
of India. In Afghanistan are three chief places forming a 
military triangle, and strongly fortified, — Herat, Cabul, and 
Candahar. Of these, Herat lies to the west, not far from 
the Persian border, and is on the direct road to Bushire, 
the principal seaport on the Persian Gulf. 

Afghanistan lies both north and south of the great chain 
of mountains running across Central Asia. We know them 
chiefly as the Himalayas, the Hindoo Koosh, and the 
Paropamisus, a low range lying at the western edge of the 
great chain between Persia, Afghanistan, and what fifty 
years ago was known in our school-books as Independent 
Tartary. 

This Turkestan, or Independent Tartary, in which lies 
the Aral Sea, and which is bordered by the Caspian, is 
watered by three great rivers, the two principal of which 
are the Oxus and Jaxartes, so known in history, but now 


1 London Spectator, 1888. 


314, RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


called by Russians the Amu Darya, and the Sir Darya. The 
whole country was in prehistoric times an inland sea, of 
which the present Caspian and Aral seas formed part. It 
was dotted with large islands which are now oases in the 
midst of sand. ‘These oases are many days’ journey from 
each other. Until a late period each was governed by its 
khan, and the oases collectively are called the Khanates. 
They were five: Khiva, Merv, Bokhara, Tashkend, and 
Khokand. The Oxus and Jaxartes were formerly mountain 
streams falling into the great sea. When it dried up they 
made their way, the one into Lake Aral, the other into the 
Caspian. But some centuries ago the men of Khiva built 
a dam across the Oxus and directed its channel so that it 
flowed into Lake Aral. Ever since Peter the Great’s time 
the Russians had. been planning how to destroy the dam, 
and turn the waters back into their old channel, when a few 
years ago a great freshet came to their assistance, and with- 
out the need of engineering the Oxus, or Amu Darya, now 
flows into the Caspian. 

This territory, once a great inland sea, is now a bare, 
sandy desert, with the exception of its oases, its northern 
part lying between the Caspian and Aral seas, its base rest- 
ing on the undefined frontier of Afghanistan, whose ameer 
claims suzerainty over tribes beyond the mountains ; to the 
east it is bounded by deserts and mountains, and on the 
west by Persia. 

Peter the Great had some plans, which he never carried 
out, for the subjugation of Khiva. In 1839 an expedition 
from Russia was sent against it, but such were the hardships 
of crossing the deserts that the expedition had to retreat, 
having lost two thirds of its troops, and multitudes of camels 
and horses. Any one who has read poor Captain Burnaby’s . 
“ Ride to Khiva”’ will not wonder that troops carrying their 
own supplies, broke down under the fatigue of the sandy 
march, the horrible heat of the desert, and its equally 
horrible cold. 

About 1860 another advance began. The Sea of Aral 


DIVE RIAL C. 315 


was reached, and the Russians then marched down the 
banks of the Amu Darya toward Khiva. But the farther 
they advanced the more opposition they encountered from 
the tribes of Tekkés, or Independent Tartars. ‘We must 
of necessity go on,” said Prince Gortschakoff, “until we 
reach the settled States, with whom we can enter into peace- 
ful commercial relations, profitable to both parties. And 
there and then we shall stop.” 

By 1865 the Russians had acquired all northern Inde- 
pendent Tartary, and then they took Tashkend and Khokand, 
which brought them near the khanate of Bokhara, while 
over the mountains in an outlying district of the Empire of 
China, lay Kashgar and Yarkand, places whose names we 
read in newspapers with ignorant indifference. In 1868 
Samarcand and Bokhara were placed under a Russian pro- 
tectorate. Bokhara had always been a place of refuge for 
Afghan deposed princes. In 1840 it was governed by that 
unspeakable wretch the Emir who imprisoned Captains 
Stoddard and Connelly, and finally thrust them into a 
dreadful pit, to be eaten alive by insects kept there for the 
purpose ; from which death one is thankful to think they 
were released, on some sudden alarm, by the sword of the 
executioner. 

Khiva and Merv remained independent, but in 1873 three 
Russian columns marched against Khiva. One perished of 
thirst and heat, one came near doing so, but one succeeded. 
Khiva fell without a struggle, and its khan, like the other 
khans, became a Russian feudatory. 

Russia has therefore in suzerainty a quadrangular moun- 
tain and desert region in Central Asia. 

One of the officers employed in this war against the 
Tartars, as we used to call them (Turcomans and Tekkés 
the books name them now), was the future General Mikhail 
Dimitrivitch Skobeleff. He early conceived the idea that 
the conquest of this country would be to Russia the con- 
quest of a road to India through Afghanistan ; that some 
day, if England continued to oppose the acquisition of 


316 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT! CENTURY. 


Constantinople, Russia through Afghanistan could threaten 
her Indian possessions, and keep her armies employed for 
their defence, or might make a bargain with the English 
government promising to give up her designs on India, and 
relinquish all alliance with Afghanistan, provided England 
would consent to her designs upon Constantinople. 

The Turkish War of 1877 broke out, and Skobeleff was 
sent to the Danube. The English government, having ven- 
tured some remonstrances about the Russian advances in the 
East, was answered somewhat roughly by Prince Gortschakoff 
that while he “had a whale to look after he would not 
trouble himself about little fishes.”’ But he very seriously 
troubled himself about the “ little fishes’’ notwithstanding ; 
an embassy was about to be sent to Cabul to propitiate the 
ameer; and if the ‘Treaty of Berlin had proved wholly un- 
satisfactory to the Emperor Alexander, or had he been one 
of those monarchs who “ delight in war,” those plans would 
have been carried out which were already made for an 
advance on India, for stirring up the native population 
against the British, and taking a position of strong influence, 
if not of authority, in Afghanistan. At that time Skobeleff 
had his scheme fully drawn out for an invasion of India, by 
taking possession of the Afghan passes, — the Khyber and 
the Bolan. He seems to have changed his mind, however, 
afterward, and to have considered that the best way to 
attack India would be by crossing the Paropamisus Moun- 
tains near the Persian frontier, and taking possession of 
Herat 

This is not the place to relate the history of Afghanistan, 
or the story of the second Cabul massacre, which ended by 
the present ameer of Afghanistan, the stern and cruel Abdu- 
rahman, being placed upon the Afghan throne. He has 
maintained himself upon that throne for twenty years ; and 
on the whole has been faithful to his alliance with the Eng- 
lish. But his life is an uncertain one. He suffers severely 
from gout, he is always exposed to assassination, and many 
mien have with him blood-feuds for the unjust slaughter of 


SIBERIA, ETC. 317 


their relatives. His authority over his mountain chiefs, their 
strongholds, and their followers is as precarious as that of any 
King James or King Robert in Scottish history over High- 
land chieftains and their clans. When Abdurahman dies, or 
comes to grief, there will be a fresh struggle, either by arms 
or by diplomacy, between England and Russia. 

The English within the last few years have established a 
protectorate over Beloochistan. Not that Beloochistan is 
worth anything, — for it is as sandy as the bed of the ocean, 
— but it contains a place called Quetta ; and Quetta is sup- 
posed to be a back door to the possession of what is called 
the key of India, — namely, Herat. 

Who shall have Herat is now the great question to be de- 
cided between the Russians in Central Asia and the British 
in India. The English have no desire to occupy Herat. 
Their wish is to have it in the hands of an ameer of Afgan- 
istan, who is faithful to their interests, and who will op- 
pose its falling into the power or under the influence of 
Russia. 

Herat lies on the edge of northwestern Afghanistan, not 
far from the frontier of Persia and south of the Paropamisus 
range of mountains. All great military authorities (Skobe- 
leff in his latter years among them) seem to agree in regard- 
ing Herat as the key to India. Past Herat all conquerors 
of Hindoostan, except the English, have come, — Alexander 
the Great, Timour the Tartar, Yengis Khan, Nadir Shah, 
and all the rest. ‘It is a city,’ says a Persian geographer, 
“that has been fifty times taken, fifty times destroyed, and 
fifty times has risen from its ashes.’’ ‘Though the oriental- 
ism of the statistics of the Persian makes his statement in 
substance untrue, it is true in spirit! It was in the Middle 
Ages the route of all caravans from the west to the east, as 
well as of all armies. Seven hundred years ago it contained, 
according to the records of that period, twelve thousand 
retail shops, six thousand public baths, caravanseries, and 
water-mills, three hundred and fifty schools and Moham- 


1 Cf. Blackwood’s Magazine. 


318 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


medan monastic institutions, and one hundred and forty- 
four thousand occupied houses. The country surrounding 
it is marvellously fertile and beautiful, particularly rich in 
apple and plum orchards. Herat is no longer what it was ; 
but it still commands the only easy road running through a 
fertile country to India. This road passes along a narrow 
strip of land lying between deserts. An army that sets out 
from Herat may cross Afghanistan to the Bolan Pass, with- 
out experiencing difficulties. 

Before 1879, when the second Cabul massacre took place, 
and before Abdurahman was placed upon the Afghan throne, 
it had been a great object with the English to put resident 
agents into Herat, Cabul, and Candahar. Shere Ali, then 
ruler of Afghanistan, believed in a coming war between 
England and Russia, and sat on the fence prepared to 
drop down upon the winning side. Meantime Skobeleff 
was again in Tartary, this time with a view of taking Geok 
Tepi, —a stronghold in which the Tekké-Turcomans had 
shut up themselves and their families. This place had suc- 
cessfully repulsed one Russian army; but Skobeleff was not 
to be resisted. The account of the siege, the assault, and 
the sack may be found in that very interesting book, — 
Alexander Verestchagin’s ‘‘ At Home and in War.”” Among 
the followers of Skobeleff was a young man of Asiatic birth, 
Ali Khan by name, who entered the Russian army and 
Russianized himself into Alikhanoff. He had been a fa- 
vorite with Skobeleff in the war of 1877; but one day, hav- 
ing lost his temper in a quarrel, he challenged his superior 
officer, was reduced to the ranks as a punishment, and was 
sent as a private to Turkestan. Already when Skobeleff 
took command in that country he had begun to rise 
again. 

Alikhanoff’s deeds are celebrated in that war; and the 
great ability and unscrupulous audacity he showed in con- 
nection with the taking of Merv, have made him a brilliant 
figure among Russian military heroes. 

Alikhanoff may be said to have captured Merv almost 


SIBERIA, ETC. 319 


single-handed for the Russians ; and now outside its gates 
is a railway station. ‘To that point the trans-Caspian rail- 
road runs south, and then branches off to take a course as 
directly east as possible to Samarcand. From Samarcand it 
is thought probable it may eventually skirt the Chinese fron- 
tier, and enter southern Siberia. 

Be that as it may, Merv lies only three hundred miles 
north of Herat.’ The Russians are endeavoring by every 
means to encroach on the untefined frontier of Afghanistan 
north of its mountains ; and most probably the time is not far 
distant when the Russian border will reach the Paropamisus 
range. ‘This range is not difficult to cross. It was formerly 
supposed to be so; but experience has proved that it con- 
sists at its western end of gently sloping hills. By this road 
Russia, when she is ready, can approach Herat, and (Herat 
in her hands) can march toward British India. An army 
could be carried from St. Petersburg to the Volga. Down 
the Volga, with its navy of steamboats, the troops could 
float two thousand miles to the Caspian Sea. Things have 
changed upon the Caspian since 1879, when Skobeleff had 
his army ferried across it in barges. There is now an im- 
mense fleet on the Caspian, called into being by the petro- 
leum wells of Baku. These wells have come into knowledge 
just in time to supply fuel for the great Central Asiatic 
railroad. 

In 1888 the railroad was opened to Samarcand. It is 
stupendous to think of it, —a city in which Queen Schehe- 
razade placed her fairy-land! The Tartars of that district 
used to say that, unless the Franks could fly faster than their 
horses, and could bind down the sands of their deserts, 
that region could never be subdued. But both these things 
have been done. Nine hundred miles of rail connect 
Krasnovodsk on the Caspian with fairy Samarcand, which 
is now within ten days’ journey from St. Petersburg. Al- 
ready commerce has availed itself of the new means of 
transportation. The merchant of the interior no longer 


1 Cf. The Russians at the Gates of Herat. 


320 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


travels across sandy deserts with his merchandise on camels, 
exposed to dangers from heat and cold and shifting sands, 
and above all from bands of robbers and the exactions of 
local rulers. An immense trade is now carried on between 
Central Asia and Batoum, —a port on the Black Sea, ceded 
to Russia by the Treaty of Berlin, to which there is a branch 
railroad, connecting it with the trans-Caspian. 

In a very interesting paper published in the “‘ Nineteenth 
Century,” 1890, by Arminius Vambéry, the distinguished 
Hungarian traveller, linguist, and professor, he comments 
on the changes that have taken place in Central Asia since, 
in 1863, he visited the regions, now traversed by the rail- 
road, in terror of his life, and in disguise. He was then 
lame, or he would have been undoubtedly captured by rob- 
bers, and sold asaslave. He travelled in a pannier slung on 
a camel’s back, and on the other side, to balance him, was 
a buffalo calf. He tells appalling stories of the slave trade 
in 1863 carried on by the Tekké-Turcomans. The slaves 
were principally Persians, heretics in the eyes of their cap- 
tors. All wore heavy chains. ‘The domestic slaves had 
collars by which they were pegged down at night, and the 
tents of the Turcomans were full of them. 

A Turcoman poet living at the close of the last century, 
in one of his poems on the end of the world, made this re- 
markable prediction: ‘ Russia will be the power that will 
destroy the Moslem, and finally Antichrist shall annihilate 
Russia.” 

“So isolated was the region through which I travelled in 
1863,” says Vambéry, “that on my return the shah of Per- 
sia and his ministers made the most anxious inquiries of 
me, — Central Asia seeming to be to them as unknown as 
Japan or China. . . . Boundless is my wonder when I con- 
sider the changes.” ; 

And yet, among the things introduced by “ civilization in 
a Russian dress,” are three that were unknown in 1863 
among the ‘“ Man-Stealers” (the Russian name for Turco- 
mans): liquor, gambling, and official corruption. 


SIBERIA, ETC. 201 


The Russians are not bad masters at first to the nations 
they annex or conquer. It being impossible at once to 
Russify them or to convert them to orthodoxy, they are suf- 
fered to retain their own manners and customs, and as much 
as possible to govern themselves. ‘The Russians never try 
to ameliorate the condition of the working class, or to cor- 
rect abuses. What is custom in a place they let alone, 
however bad it may be. Their system is policy, not philan- 
thropy, and they do what is rarely done by the English, 
they assimilate the leading men and make them Russians. 
The Russian army is full of Asiatics, officers and gentlemen, 
who are still Mohammedans, but they wear the Russian 
dress, their breasts are covered with Russian orders, and 
like Ali Khan they Russianize their names. Under English 
rule no Asiatic becomes an Englishman. 

I cannot leave the subject of Russian railroads without 
alluding to the terrible experience of the imperial family 
on October 29, 1888, while making a tour in southern 
Russia. They had left the town of Borki behind them, and 
were in the midst of what seemed an interminable desert. 
There were several carriages on the train, one filled with 
guards, others with servants and officers of the household. 

Suddenly — from some cause that the public has never 
distinctly known —a terrible wreck of the train took place, 
perhaps by accident, perhaps by design. The members of 
the imperial family were not seriously hurt, but twenty-one 
persons were killed, most of whom were soldiers or railroad 
employees. 

It must have been a fearful scene to the empress when 
she found herself standing in that desolate waste, in the 
midst of the dead, wounded, and dying, —the little Grand 
Duchess Xenia clinging to her father with cries of, “Oh ! 
they are coming to kill you! They will kill us all!” And 
indeed, had that been the purpose of hidden enemies they 
might doubtless have accomplished it, as the czar and his 
family stood helpless and shelterless in the midst of death 
and desolation. 

21 


322 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


No wonder that members of that most unhappy race 
never feel themselves, those dear to them, or those sur- 
rounding them, safe from the destroyer. 

This continual apprehension of a danger “ that walketh in 
darkness” is upon all of them, and has a deplorable in- 
fluence on the sensitive nervous system inherited by the 
Romanoffs from generation to generation. 

It need not surprise us that the emperor, seeing a young 
officer approaching him with his hand in the breast of his 
uniform, at once thought of the assassin who had thus rid- 
den up to his grandfather in the great Square of St. Isaac, 
and drew his own pistol. 

Can we wonder that he flees from: the harmless stranger 
who lies in wait for him with a camera; or that the first im- 
pression of the boy czarevitch when a Japanese fanatic 
sprang upon him was that his assailant was a Nihilist con- 
vict, escaped from Saghalien ? Pete 

We read frequently in our daily papers about the designs 
of Russia on the Pamirs. ‘The Pamirs are great plateaux in 
that part of the Himalaya Mountains where they are joined 
by two other ranges, the Beloor and the Kien-Lun. This 
spot has been called, poetically, the Roof of the World. 
The Kien-Lun and Beloor mountains form a crescent round 
the western portion of the Chinese Empire, the territory 
called sometimes Eastern Turkestan, and known in earlier 
geographies as Chinese Tartary. 

An outlying portion of Thibet, called Little Thibet, a 
region infested by fierce and lawless tribes, lies in a narrow 
valley between the Kien-Lun and Himalaya mountains 
directly north of British India. 

By looking at a map of British India, we shall see that 
Hindostan runs to a point at the north, where it is bounded 
by mountains which shut it off from Afghanistan, Little 
Thibet, and Eastern Turkestan. Directly north of the Kien-. 
Lun Mountains, shortly before they reach the meeting-point 
of the Roof of the World, lie the khanates of Kashgar and 
Yarkand, near neighbors to Bokhara, which is now in the 


SIBERIA, ETC. 323 


possession of Russia.. At present Kashgar and Yarkand 
owe a doubtful allegiance to the emperor of China, but 
Russia advances claims to them as former possessions of 
Bokhara. ! 

England, Afghanistan, and China are all united in resist- 
ing Russian encroachments in this direction ; if she obtains 
possession of the Pamirs (vast steppes in the heart of that 
meeting-place of mountains) she will have great advantages 
in any attack she may plan on Afghanistan, on China, or 
on British India. By entering Afghanistan on the north- 
east she could, if she were at war with England, and had 
secured possession of Herat, have two roads which would 
lead her to the Khyber Pass or the Bolan by which to enter 
Hindostan. 

Russia, by her possession of Bokhara ; China, by her pos- 
session of Yarkand and Kashgar; England, by her posses- 
sion of Cashmere, Afghanistan on her northern boundary, 
and the strip of land called Little Thibet, — seem to meet 
almost at the same point on the northern frontier of British 
India. All that in case of war would separate the English 
and Russian outposts is the narrow line of land north of 
the Hindoo Koosh, claimed by Afghanistan, and inhab- 
ited by turbulent tribes who pay to the ameer a doubtful 
homage. This is why Russia and China are contending 
for possession of the Pamirs, and why England and Afghan- 
istan look on Russia’s success in that direction with a 
jealous eye. 

We come now to what seems to me the most flagrant 
abuse of Russian power, even worse than the revival of the 
policy of the Middle Ages in the persecution of the Jews. 
Comparatively it has attracted little notice in Europe. The 
Jews have at least some protection from their co-religion- 
ists, who can retaliate on their oppressors in the money 
markets of the world; but there is no one apparently to 
lift up a voice of remonstrance for the Baltic Provinces. 
Not that any voice of remonstrance from the West would be 
of service. The czar, as we know already, takes refuge in 


324 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


the firm conviction that Russia and her institutions are 
destined to override all western Europe, and meantime 
intrenches himself behind that dangerous maxim: “ May I 
not do what I will with mine own?” 

The Baltic Provinces needed no coercion to confirm 
them in their fidelity to the czar. Their inhabitants were 
among his most loyal and attached subjects ; but all meth- 
ods are being resorted to to establish orthodoxy and 
nationality among them; the government is resolved to 
suppress “their Protestant faith, their German laws, and 
their national customs: and to supplant them by the faith 
of the orthodox Church, the Russian language, and above 
all by the peculiar system of the village tenure of land 
which prevails among Slavonic peoples.” ? 

The Baltic Provinces consist of three distinct nationali- 
ties: Finland, which was once Swedish ; Courland, Livland, 
and Esthland, which were German; and Lithuania, which 
was Polish. ‘Together they form the western boundary of 
the Russian Empire; until Russia acquired them she was 
simply Muscovy, a barbaric semi-Asiatic power. But these 
provinces, each with its own laws, language, history, and 
customs, are as strange to each other as they are to the race 
that has incorporated them. 

The three provinces, Courland, Livland, and Esthland 
(or Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia) were called Hanse 
Provinces in the sixteenth century; but three centuries 
earlier they were colonized by German knights, merchants, 
and priests, who easily established their supremacy over 
the native Slavonian peasantry. The knights were of the 
Teutonic order; before long disputes arose between them 
and the bishops, while both fought with the inhabitants of 
the free cities Riga, Revel, and Dorpat. By these quarrels 
they so weakened themselves that in the days of Ivan the 
Terrible, when Russia had grown into a formidable power, 
they could oppose little resistance to an inroad carried on 
as is implied by the very name of the invader. 


1 Edinburgh Review. 


SIBERIA, ETC. 325 


Meantime they had made great progress in prosperity 
and civilization ; but so terrible was the destruction wrought 
by the Russian invasion that to this day Livland (or Livo- 
nia) has never recovered the prosperity she enjoyed up to 
the close of the sixteenth century. 

Sweden and Poland, encouraged by the unhappy condi- 
tion of the Baltic Provinces when the Russians had retired - 
after their raid, stepped in to take possession of them. 
Finland had been always Swedish, but south of Finland lay 
Esthland (or Esthonia) which gladly placed itself under 
the protection of the Swedish kings. Courland became a 
vassal duchy of Poland, and retained its quasi-independ- 
ence till the middle of the eighteenth century, while Livland 
(or Livonia) united itself by a solemn treaty to Poland, — 
a treaty by which its people conceived they had secured for- 
ever their Lutheran faith, their German language, and inter- 
nal self-government. | 

The treaty, however, was made only to be broken. The 
effect of annexation to Poland was as disastrous as the in- 
vasion of Ivan the Terrible ; but Polish oppression did not 
last long. Livland was made over to Sweden, and under 
the humane rule of its kings, who carefully respected the 
rights and privileges of their new subjects, it was restored 
to prosperity and civilization. 

This lasted until the death of Gustavus Adolphus ; but 
one of his successors being in straits for money “ ventured 
on a measure which, under pretence of overhauling the 
defective titles of the nobles of Livland to their estates, con- 
fiscated nearly three fifths of the land of the province to 
the Swedish exchequer.” The nobles considering them- 
selves oppressed beyond endurance, sought protection from 
Peter the Great, who was at once impressed with the impor- 
tance which the extension of his territories along the shores 
of the Baltic would afford to his new empire. 

Sweden in 1712 yielded Livland and Esthland to her 
powerful neighbor by treaty. The possession of these 
provinces was indeed all important to the Russian emperor ; 


326 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


for St. Petersburg, the foundation of which he had laid in 
1703, is built upon the soil of Esthland. But by treaty 
Peter renewed for himself and his successors an engagement 
that some years before he had entered into with the Baltic 
Estates to acknowledge and to respect the ascendency of 
the Lutheran Church, the German laws, and the German 
language, as well as the hereditary institutions of the land. 

After the final partition of Poland, Courland, which until 
then had been a quasi-independent duchy, was: reunited to 
its more northerly sister-provinces, and under the rule of 
Alexander I. a new and hopeful epoch for the Baltic 
Provinces began. For fifty years (from 1795 to 1845) 
their history was one of continued peace and of advancing 
prosperity. As knowledge and civilization increased, how- 
ever, the chains of serfdom weighed heavily upon their 
peasantry, until, some years before the proclamation of 
Alexander II. gave liberty to all other Russian serfs, those 
in Esthland and Livland were voluntarily emancipated by 
their masters. 

‘‘ Nowhere in his vast dominions could the czar boast of 
more faithful subjects than in the Baltic Provinces, so long 
as the Russian government respected their acknowledged 
rights and hereditary customs. Their nobility furnished 
the Russian army and diplomacy with the ablest of their 
generals and ambassadors. The names of Lieven, Rosen, 
Pahlen, Brunnow, Krtidener, and others are inseparable 
from Russian history.” 

But in the reign of the Emperor Nicholas the triune 
maxim of autocracy, orthodoxy, and nationality began to 
make itself felt in attacks upon the peculiar institutions of 
Finland and the Baltic Provinces. 

Under Alexander II., who was personally attached to his 
Finns, and to the people of his provinces upon the Baltic, 
they recovered heart and hope. Alexander restored the 
old Swedish constitution to Finland, and Poland, when he 
first came to the throne, was granted a provisional govern- 
ment under a national minister. Courland, Esthonia, and 


SIBERIA, ETC. 327 


Livonia, however, had not yet shared in Alexander’s political 
reforms, — probably because he was anxious to extend his 
land-system to the already emancipated serfs, — when the 
Polish revolution broke out, in 1863, and checked the 
reforming enthusiasm of the Emperor-liberator. In order 
to punish the Polish nobility, to depress them as much as 
possible, and to raise up enemies against them among their 
own peasantry, the village community system (the Mir) 
was forced on Poland. An intense hatred of things Ger- 
man became in Russia tantamount to patriotism. The 
Moscow “ Gazette’ declared that the time was passed when 
Russia could play at liberalism and cosmopolitanism. The 
duty of every Russian was to serve the State. Freedom 
without a country was an empty phantom. “It is foolish,”’ 
cried the editor Katkoff, “ to speak of the future world-wide 
sway of a Pan-Slavonic empire, and to break into ruins that 
State which is the sole representative of Slavonic ideas.” 

So “ Russia for the Russians”’ was the war-cry, and to 
be a true Russian it is necessary to belong to the orthodox 
Church, for not to acknowledge the Russian czar as spiri- 
tual as well as temporal autocrat, is, in a Russian subject, 
treason. 

As soon as Alexander III. came into power the cry was: 
Recovery of the original Russian character of Lithuanian 
lands, the re-establishment of the Russian peasants in the 
Baltic Provinces in their rights as legitimate possessors of 
the soil, of which they were deprived five hundred years 
before by Teutonic knights and German traders. The whole 
power of the government has ever since been directed to the 
annihilation of all non-Russian institutions in the empire, 
and the establishment of one compact Russian peasant 
State. 

As year after year goes on the pressure becomes stronger 
against the Lutheran religion, the German language, the 
political privileges, and the hereditary customs of the Baltic 
Provinces. And it is especially true that in these provinces 
the ruthless cruelty and unrelenting perseverance with which 
subordinates in Russia carry out the designs of their master 


328 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


are best shown. Roman Catholic churches on the smallest 
pretence have been pulled down, Lutheran churches closed, 
and Baptist meeting-houses suppressed. To convert an 
orthodox believer to another faith, or to any heresy, in- 
volves deportation to Siberia for the converter and the 
converted. ‘Those who have joined the orthodox Church, 
as many peasants in the Baltic Provinces did at one time 
from interested motives, are, if they relapse, most severely 
dealt with. 


“ Fdicts,” says Mr. Lanin, “have been issued, some clauses 
of which, if fairly carried out, would banish to Siberia the 
apostles themselves, — nay, One greater than the apostles, — 
were He or they to return to this earth and preach in the 
dominions of the czar. . . . The possession of absolute truth is 
said by historians to render people intolerant, and what the 
uninitiated might call cruel. There is no doubt that Alexander 
III. believes himself in possession of absolute truth, and his 
religion runs into his politics, his politics into ‘his religion. 
Besides his persecution of the Jews, he is bitterly severe on 
Catholics, thousands of whom in Lithuania he has compelled 
to embrace the State religion on the ground that their grand- 
fathers or great-grandfathers were members of that church, 
and could never have acquired a right to abandon it. The 
czar is pursuing the Baptists and the Stundists with a degree 
of refined cruelty compared with which Louis XIV.’s persecu- 
tion of the Huguenots, if we closely examine it, was humane. 
And firmly convinced that all these acts are the embodiment of 
the will of the Almighty, his astonishment is extreme at the 
indignation they arouse in the civilized world. . . . Alexander 
III. is not one whit less obedient to the voice of his conscience 
than was Archbishop Laud or Oliver Cromwell.” 1 


Such being Alexander III.’s feeling against his fellow- 
Christians, can we wonder at his animus against the Jews? 
— especially as the persecutors of the Jews, taking advantage 
of the death? of their protector Alexander II. (called in 
Poland the “‘ Jew Emperor’’), broke into riots and outrages 
immediately on the accession of a new czar. : 


1 Contemporary Review. 
2 There were Jews concerned in his cruel assassination. 


SIBERIA, ETC. 320 


In accordance with the fourth clause of the will of Peter 
the Great, which recommends his successors to maintain 
agents who shall intrigue in foreign courts and among 
foreign peoples to promote the interests of Russia, there 
are Russian political missionaries at work wherever Slavonic 
ideas are likely to take root if planted. Those who do 
this work are officially called missionaries. They are not 
unknown even in the United States, where men out of favor 
with their government have been sent from time to time to 
earn their pardon by creating a public opinion favorable to 
Russia. But the chief fields of this “ missionary’ work are 
in Servia and the Balkan principalities, in the outlying 
Slavonic appendages to the Hungarian kingdom, and among 
the Slavs (or Czechs) of Bohemia. The unrest that we 
read of in these countries, and among the Afghans and 
Armenians, is due in large part to the efforts of these agents 
to impress on all malcontents that they have a sympathiz- 
ing friend in Russia. One duty of these “ missionaries ” 
for the past dozen years has been to create strong popular 
feeling against the Jews. 

From what we have already said of the present Emperor 
Alexander we can feel at once how sincere must be his 
desire to rid orthodox Russia of an alien nationality and 
an unorthodox religion. 

The murder of his father, who was supposed to protect 
the Jews, was soon followed by outbreaks of peasant hate 
against them all over the provinces of Southern Russia. 
National anti-Semitic fanaticism was intensified by hopes 
of gain; for a report was current, set on foot it is believed 
by secret agents, that the czar countenanced the plunder 
of the Jews, and had given his orthodox subjects their 
property. But loss of property was of little moment, com- 
pared with outrages that have been thus enumerated by a 
correspondent of the London “Times” ;: — 


“Men murdered, tender infants dashed to death, or roasted 
alive in their own homes, girls violated in the sight of their 
relatives by soldiers, who should have been the guardians of 


330 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


their honor; for during scenes of murder and of pillage the 
local authorities everywhere have stood by with folded arms, 
doing little or nothing to prevent their occurrence or recurrence, 
and allowing the ignorant peasantry to remain under the impres- 
sion that a wkase existed ordering the property of Jews to be 
handed over to their fellow-Russians. Indeed, in one place the 
mayor read a copy of the supposed wase to his fellow-citizens, 
and a riot would have ensued had not the village priest done 
his duty, and declared his belief that no such wkase existed.” 


In one province, where a flourishing agricultural settle- 
ment of Jews had been established for forty years, the mob 
was led by men dressed as police officers, who produced a 
document purporting to be the spoliation proclamation of 
the czar. In this place the farm implements were all 
destroyed, and five hundred cattle and ten thousand sheep 
were driven away. In one village “ the Jews adroitly turned 
the supposed wkase of the czar into a safeguard. Hearing 
that the rioters were advancing to the’ attack, they brought 
the keys of their houses to their Christian neighbors, saying 
that if the wkase was true it would be better that neighbors 
should have their property than the rioters ; and if the wkase 
proved to be untrue of course their good neighbors would 
return the keys. The Christians of the village accordingly 
repulsed the rioters, and in a few days the Jews were again 
in possession of their property.” 

By early summer in 1881, a few months after the death 
of Alexander II., the chief towns and villages of southern 
Russia were ablaze with violence and riot. Whenever 
arrests were made, after the work of destruction was 
completed (never before; for until the rioters had done 
their worst the authorities do not seem to have interfered 
with the work that was going on), Jews were among those 
who were put in prison, charged with carrying revolvers 
without a permit, to defend their homes. 

The excitement spread even to the Caspian Sea and to 
Siberia. As late as November the myth of the spoliation 
wkase encouraged all outrages. 


SIBERIA, ETC. 331 


Not content with riot, the “red cock’ that summer 
crowed over forty-one towns inhabited by Jews, twenty 
thousand of whom were rendered homeless. The ‘“ red 
cock” is the proverbial expression used by the Russian 
mowujik for the work of the incendiary. ‘The value of Jew- 
ish property that summer destroyed in southern Russia, by 
arson and by pillage, has been estimated at eighty million 
dollars. 

These outrages were recorded for us in telegrams twelve 
years ago, as similar horrors are in 1893. ‘A violent out- 
break against the Jews took place at”’ Lipsk, Pinsk, or else- 
where. And that is all we hear of them. 


“The municipalities,” says the “ Times” in its issue of Jan. 
13, 1882, “‘ with the connivance of the local governments, have 
added to the misery of the situation. With rough logic they 
have argued that, as these riots were directed against the Jews, 
if there had been no Jews there would have been no riots. 
They accordingly petitioned the governors of their provinces to 
issue orders for the expulsion of the Jews from towns in which 
they had no legal right of domicile. The Jews in Russia are 
only allowed to reside in twenty-eight provinces, often only in 
certain towns; and the number of persons to reside is (at least 
theoretically) limited. During Alexander II.’s reign, however, 
these laws had been somewhat allowed to fall into desuetude; 
and many Jews had ventured beyond the limits assigned them. 
But leaving aside the general question, it was a most heartless 
act to add to the miseries of the Jewish population at the moment 
when the mob was eagerly scanning the disposition of the au- 
thorities to discover to what lengths they might proceed with 
impunity.” 


Nevertheless, this was the view taken by the czar’s reac- 
tionary minister, General Ignatieff, who, as we have seen, 
was put in office to reverse the policy of Loris Melikoff, and 
to abridge as much as possible all privileges granted by the 
late czar. Nothing whatever was done by government to 
protect the Jews or to suppress the riots; but after May 
23, when a deputation of the Jews of St. Petersburg, headed 
by Baron Gunzberg, waited on the czar, Alexander III. 


332 KUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE AIX?! CEN TORY, 


expressed his intention of dealing with the evil; and the 
result was that on September 3 the following edict was 
issued, which simply tended to aggravate the situation. I 
give the larger part of it intact, because it is the keynote to 
the policy which has been ever since pursued in Russia, and 
which has culminated in that expulsion of the Jews about 
which at present we know so little, but which has filled all 
western Europe and America with horror : — 


“For some time the government has given its attention to 
the Jews and to their relations to the rest of the inhabitants 
of the empire, with a view of ascertaining the sad condition of 
the Christian inhabitants brought about by the conduct of the 
Jews in business matters. 

“For the last twenty years the government has endeavored in 
various ways to bring the Jews near to its other inhabitants, 
and has given them almost equal rights with the indigenous 
population. The movements, however, against the Jews, which 
began last spring in the south of Russia and extended to central 
Russia, prove incontestably that all its endeavors have been of 
no avail, and that ill-feeling prevails now as much as ever be- 
tween the Jewish and the Christian inhabitants of those parts. 
Now, the proceedings at the trial of those charged with rioting, 
and other evidence, bear witness to the fact that the main cause 
of these movements and riots, to which the Russians as a nation 
are strangers, was but a commercial one, and is as follows : — 

‘“ During the last twenty years the Jews have gradually pos- 
sessed themselves of not only every trade and business in all 
its branches, but also of a great part of the land by buying or 
farming it. With few exceptions, they have as a body devoted 
their attention, not to enriching or benefiting the country, but to 
defrauding by their wiles its inhabitants, and particularly its 
poor inhabitants. This conduct of theirs has called forth pro- 
tests on the part of the people, as manifested in acts of violence 
and robbery. The government, while on the one hand doing its 
best to put down the disturbances, and to deliver the Jews from 
oppression and slaughter, have also, on the other hand, thought 
it a matter of urgency and justice to adopt stringent measures 
in order to put an end to the oppression practised by the Jews 
on the inhabitants, and to free the country from their malprac- 
tices, which were, as is known, the cause of the agitation.” 


SIBERIA, ETC. 333 


With this view commissions were appointed, and encour- 
aged to report as unfavorably to the Jews as possible on their 
trades, the extent of their farming, their usury, and liquor 
dealing. 

There is no word of reprimand to those who had indulged 
themselves (not in isolated cases, but in whole districts) in 
rape, murder, and rapine. The document showed clearly 
to the populace that the government shared their prejudices 
against the Jews. 

When the governor of Warsaw was ordered to publish 
this circular, he at first refused, saying that Jews and Poles 
had always lived on such friendly terms that no commission 
to inquire into their relations seemed necessary. He was, 
however, forced to publish the rescript ; and the result was 
a frightful rising against the Jews at Christmas, three months 
after. Three hundred houses and six hundred shops in War- 
saw were pillaged and devastated, and thousands of victims 
were rendered homeless, and reduced to beggary. 


“In the first place,” says the “ Times,” “ the riot at Warsaw 
was clearly planned, an alarm of fire being simultaneously raised 
in at least two places, and the mob being directed by men who 
spoke Polish with a Russian accent. The culpable neglect of 
the military authorities in refusing to make use of the twenty 
thousand men forming the garrison, finds its counterpart in the 
similar behavior of other governors earlier in the year. The 
behavior of the police, who are described as only interfering to 
prevent the Jews from protecting themselves, tallies with their 
behavior elsewhere. And finally the attempts that were made 
by telegraph officials and others to prevent the true state of the 
case from reaching the rest of Europe may serve to account for 
the fact that the enormities of the past nine months have only 
found the faintest echo in the press of Europe.”’ 


And even so it isnow. It is impossible to give anything 
like an historical account of what is going on in Russia in 
relation to the Jews, or what has been going on there for 
the past two years; indeed, from the time the document I 
have quoted was put forth, the government has steadily 


334 RUSSIA AND TURKEV IN THE XIXTH CENT ORY. 


acted on its spirit. Neither concerning the expulsion and 
persecution of the three million Jews in Russia, nor of the 
famine, nor of the cholera, can anything reliable as yet be 
told. We can only read brief newspaper reports and tele- 
grams ; and by the faint light that streams down to us from 
events that took place a dozen years ago, can form some 
idea of the present situation. 

Under M. Probédonostzeff, now minister of worship, a 
man whose influence for the past eight years has almost 
overshadowed the throne, — it is natural to suppose that all 
religious persecutions undertaken at his instigation will be 
carried on with redoubled vigor. “ It is Pobédonostzeff,” 
says a writer in 1892, ‘who keeps alive in the czar the idea 
that he is the anointed of the Lord, the representative of 
God upon earth; and that the population of his endless 
empire only exists to obey his will.” 

Yet the czar has no love for greatness ; he conscientiously 
believes that the duties of his position have been thrust upon 
him ; and sees in himself a Joshua commanded to purge a 
land that is holy of all but the race to whom its destinies 
have by Providence been committed. He will exterminate 
by modern methods all misbelievers in Holy Russia, even as 
the people of Jericho or Ai were put to the sword. 


CHAPTER XIV. 
SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 


I HAVE told the history of the war between Russia and 

Turkey, which had its origin in the Bulgarian massa- 
cres, perpetrated during the last months of Abdul Aziz’s 
reign. ‘These massacres were chiefly due to the obstinacy, 
the supineness, or the incapacity of the grand vizier, 
Mohammed Nedim Pasha, who, strange to say, was at that 
very time the close ally of the Russian ambassador, General 
Ignatieff, and indeed it has always been believed that he 
accepted pay for his influence in favor of Russia. 

It needed no foresight to tell what would be the result 
of arming all Mussulmans in Bulgaria, at the same time 
that all men in the Christian villages were disarmed. Nor, 
when outrages began, would the grand vizier suffer regular 
troops to be sent into the disturbed districts, where Pom- 
acks, Bashi-Bazouks and Circassians were falling with fury 
on the defenceless population. 

Pomacks are renegade Slavs; the Circassians, as we 
know, were Mohammedan mountaineers from the Caucasus, 
to whom in 1869 Abdul Aziz offered an asylum ; and Bashi- 
Bazouks were an irregular corps composed of outcasts of all 
nations, ready for any deviltry, and keen for plunder. It 
was not the Turks who murdered their Christian neighbors, 
but men of alien races, all of whom, however, professed the 
Moslem faith. ; 

The Turkish Empire is said to be composed of nineteen 
nationalities, each and all antagonistic to one another; and 
at the very moment when America and western Europe 
were filled with excitement, arising from reports of the 


336 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


atrocities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a revolution was 
taking place in the palace of the sultan, the details of which 
have excited very little interest, partly because in the end 
it proved abortive, and partly because what public attention 
could be given to Turkey was soon absorbed by accounts 
of the Russian War. 

Something about this project of reform has been related 
in the chapter called “ Four Sultans.” Its leader was Midhat 
Pasha, the third great Turkish statesman of modern times. 
The two others, Fuad Pasha and Aali Pasha, happily for 
themselves, died natural deaths in 1871; for Midhat was 
reserved detraction, disappointment, exile, and eventually 
poison. He had been appointed by Abdul Medjid governor- 
general of the province of Rustchuk on the Danube, and he 
was spoken of to Sir Henry Elliot, English ambassador at 
Constantinople from 1867 to 1877, in the following terms: 
‘He is a man wholly unlike the ordinary Turkish vav. He 
has been doing all in his power to develop the province, 
establishing schools, making roads, encouraging industries, 
and giving security to life and property by a firm and impar- 
tial administration of justice.” 

When Fuad and Aali died, within six months of each 
other, Sultan Abdul Aziz, who had not dared to rid himself 
of their control, congratulated himself on being, at last, out 
of leading-strings. 

Midhat was head of what was called the party of Young 
Turkey, and was a man of so much influence that his rival, 
Mohammed Nedim did not dare openly to get rid of him. 
For three years (from 1872 to 1875) a struggle was carried 
on between them. From time to time Midhat would ven- 
ture to remonstrate with the sultan, sometimes to some 
purpose, generally with no effect. By degrees, —at times 
in power, but more often in disgrace, — he matured his 
plans. In 1875 he detailed them thus to the English 
ambassador : — 


“The sultan’s empire is being rapidly brought to destruction ; 
corruption has reached a pitch that it has never before attained ; 


MIDHAT PASHA 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URDANA 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 337 


the service of the State is starved while untold millions are 
being poured into the palace, and the provinces are being 
ruined by the uncontrolled exactions of the governors, who pur- 
chase their appointments at the palace; and nothing can save 
the country but a complete change of system.” 


The only remedy that Midhat could perceive lay, first, in 
securing a control over the sovereign by making the minis- 
ters — especially as regarded the finances — responsible to 
a national popular assembly; secondly, in making this 
assembly truly national by doing away with all distinctions 
of classes and religions, and by placing the Christians upon 
a footing of entire equality with the Mohammedans ; thirdly 
by decentralization, and by the establishment of provincial 
control over the governors. 

In a previous chapter I have told all the details of the 
actual outbreak, a year later, in the autumn of 1875. The 
word ‘constitution ’’ was by that time in everybody’s mouth, 
but it being reasonable to expect that the sultan’s views on 
the subject would be obstinate and obstructive, the hopes of 
the reformers turned to Prince Murad, the heir presumptive, 
who it was known was prepared to grant a constitution, and 
to inaugurate reform. We know already how the conspiracy 
of reform was carried out. On May 30, 1876, when war 
was going on with Servia, and when Bosnia and Herzegovina 
were in insurrection, the empire was in the utmost peril. 
Abdul Aziz was made prisoner and Murad V. proclaimed, 
amidst general and apparently heartfelt expressions of 
rejoicing. We know also how Murad’s nerves proved 
unable to bear the strain and excitement of the revolution 
in his favor, and how his mind gave way when he found 
himself only a tool in the hands of his ministers. 

Having related at some length the story of the suicide of 
Abdul Aziz, I should not recur to it here were it not that 
it had subsequently its influence on the fate of Midhat 
Pasha; and it may be well to draw attention to what has 
been said of it by Sir Henry Elliot, because in magazine ar- 
ticles up to the present day, doubts have been cast upon the 

22 


338 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


manner of Abdul Aziz’s death, and because a trial of two 
men, a wrestler and a gardener, was gotten up by the 
camarilla that desired the complete destruction of Midhat 
Pasha, then an exile in Arabia. The wrestler and the gar- 
dener confessed that they had been hired by Hussein Avni 
and Midhat Pasha to slay the deposed sultan. These men, 
(supposing them to be guilty) were never punished for the 
regicide ; but the death of Midhat, and the closer confine- 
ment of ex-Sultan Murad, quickly followed their supposed 
confession. Sir Henry Elliot says: — 


“When, on the morning of June 4, 1877, five days after his 
deposition, it was announced that Abdul Aziz had committed 
suicide by opening the veins of his arms with a pair of scissors, 
there was probably not a person who doubted, any more than I 
did myself, that he had in reality been a victim of assassination ; 
and my suspicion of foul play was only removed in the course 
of the forenoon by the report of Dr. Dickson, the embassy 
physician, who made me acquainted with particulars and details 
which up to this time (1888) have been to the general public 
almost, if not entirely, unknown. 

“Dr. Dickson was a man of great intelligence, of long expe- 
rience in many parts of the East, where he had seen much of 
the secret and dark doings of the harems. He was of a sus- 
picious rather than a confiding character, little likely to shut his 
eyes to any evidence of a crime; and he certainly would not 
have concealed it from me, his ambassador, if he had enter- 
tained even the remotest doubt upon the case. 

“Dr. Dickson came to me at Therapia straight from an 
examination of the body, and declared in the most positive 
manner that there was not a doubt in his mind that it was a 
case of suicide, and that all suspicion of assassination must be 
discarded. He told me that, early in the morning, he had 
received a summons from the government, inviting him.to go to 
the palace to examine the body of the ex-sultan, and to ascer- 
tain the cause of his death. All the principal medical men in 
Constantinople had received a similar invitation, which eighteen 
or nineteen, including those of several of the embassies, with 
Turkish, Greek, and Armenian physicians, had accepted. 

‘‘ Besides these, there was another English doctor, an old Dr. 
Millingen, the same who was with Lord Byron when he died at 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 339 


Missolonghi, and who had ever since remained in the East, and 
was a medical attendant on the ladies of the imperial harem. 

“He and Dr. Dickson went together to the palace, but found 
on their arrival that the other doctors had finished their exami- 
nation; and Dickson told me that he and Millingen, being thus 
left alone, had made as complete an examination of the body as 
it was possible to make. He told me that they had turned it 
over, and looked minutely at every part of it, to see what traces 
of violence could be found upon it, but there were absolutely 
none, with the exception of cuts in both arms, partly severing 
the arteries, from which the sultan had bled to death. The 
skin, he said, was more wonderfully delicate than he had ever 
seen in a full grown person, and was more like the skin of a 
child, but there was not a scratch, mark, or bruise on any part 
of it; and he declared that it was perfectly impossible that the 
force that would have been required to hold so powerful a man 
could have been employed without leaving visible marks. The 
artery of one arm was almost entirely, and that of the other 
partially, severed; the wound being such, in Dickson’s opinion, 
as would be made, not by a knife, but by sharp-pointed scissors, 
with little cuts, or snips, running in the direction that would be 
expected in the case of a man inflicting them on himself. 

“He had therefore no hesitation in accepting as correct the 
account that had been given of the manner of the sultan’s 
death. The wounds, moreover, if not made by himself, must 
have been made from behind, by some one leaning over his 
chair, where no one could have taken up his position without a 
struggle, of which traces must have remained, or without noise, 
which must certainly have been heard in the adjoining room, in 
which the ladies were collected. It further appeared that 
when the sultan was seated in the chair in which the pools of 
blood proved him to have bled to death, the back of his head 
could be seen by the women, who were watching at a flanking 
window in the next room, and to whom any one getting behind 
the chair would be distinctly visible. 

“ From all this Dr. Dickson and Dr. Millingen concluded, as 
I have said, without hesitation, that the sultan had destroyed 
himself; and when they went out and joined the other physi- 
cians who had examined the body before their arrival, they 
found that they also were unanimous in arriving at the same 
opinion. Among them were foreigners whose independence of 
character was beyond dispute, and who would, without hesita- 
tion, have given a contrary verdict had there been reason for it; 


340 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT# CENTURY. 


but they one and all came to the same conclusion ; and several 
years later Dr. Marouin, the eminent physician of the French 
embassy, as well as Dr. Dickson, published a statement that 
nothing had in the slightest degree shaken the conviction orig- 
inally arrived at by them. Even if the medical evidence stood 
alone, it would seem to be very conclusive; but it does not 
stand alone, and taken in conjunction with the statements of 
the women of the harem, it appears quite irresistible. 

“Dr. Millingen, as medical attendant of these ladies, went 
into the harem, and questioned them, immediately after examin- 
ing the body. They told him that, in consequence of the state 
of mind into which the sultan had fallen since his deposition, 
every weapon or instrument by which he could do himself or 
others an injury had been removed from his reach; that in the 
morning he had asked for a pair of scissors to trim his beard, 
which were at first refused, but afterwards, in spite of the urgent 
remonstrances of the women, they were sent to him by the order 
of the sultan’s valide, who did not like to refuse him; and that, 
as soon as he got them he made the women leave the room, 
and locked the door. The women took their station at the pro- 
jecting side window of the adjoining room of which I have 
spoken, from whence they could look into the part of the room 
in which the sultan’s chair stood, and could just see the back of 
his head as he sat init. After a time they saw his head fall 
forward, and alarm being taken, the va/zde ordered the door to 
be broken open, when the sultan was found dead, with pools of 
blood on the floor, and with the veins of both arms opened. 
When Dr. Millingen, hearing that the va/zde was in a state of 
distraction, asked if she would see him, she exclaimed that it 
was not the doctor, but the executioner who should be sent to 
her, as it was she who had caused the death of her son. 

“ Sultan Abdul Aziz had an undoubted predisposition to in- 
sanity in his blood. He had, to my own knowledge, been out 
of his mind on several occasions, the first being as far back as 
1863. I had spoken of his insanity in my letters to Lord Derby, 
reporting that I had been told of it as an undoubted fact by one 
of the ministers. He was known to hold that suicide was the 
proper resource of a deposed monarch. When the news of the 
deposition of Napoleon III. had been brought to him, his im- 
mediate exclamation had been: ‘And that man consents to 
live!’ If at the time there was no ground for a suspicion of 
assassination, there was certainly no evidence worthy of the 
slightest consideration brought forward three years later, at the 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID, 341 


iniquitous trial, when the ruin of certain important personages 
had been resolved upon. The men on whose perjured and 
suborned evidence the conviction of Midhat Pasha and others 
was obtained, though they declared themselves to have mur- 
dered the sultan with their own hands at the instigation of 
the pashas, were not only not executed, but are believed to 
have continued in the enjoyment ever since of comfortable 
pensions.” ? 


It is hardly to be supposed that for this iniquitous pro- 
ceeding — this blot upon an otherwise creditable reign — 
Abdul Hamid himself is to be held responsible. For the 
first four years after his accession he was completely in the 
power of three of his ministers, a triumvirate who would not 
even allow him a voice in the matter of appointments. As 
for instance when the sultan, at the beginning of the Rus- 
sian war, nominated the unfortunate Baker Pasha (Col. 
Valentine Baker) second in command of the armies of the 
Sublime Porte, the sevaskier Redif Pasha flatly refused to 
give him his commission. Baker objected that the sultan 
had given him orders to join the army. ‘ No matter,”’ said 
Redif; ‘he will revoke those orders, for I refuse my signa- 
ture to any order that may be given you to leave Constanti- 
nople for Shumla.” 

The three men who composed the triumvirate were, Mah- 
moud Damat; Redif Pasha, seraskier (or head of the war 
department) ; and Said Pasha, an excellent man, educated 
in England, but very timid. He was made /erzk of the 
Palace, that is, its chief controller. The sultan was also at 
that time very much under the influence of his foster sister, 
the wife of Mahmoud Damat. 

Abdul Hamid, who bore the name of his great grand- 
father, was the third son of Abdul Medjid, and was born in 
1842. His mother was a Georgian who died of consump- 
tion very soon after his birth. He was then adopted by 
one of his father’s wives who was childless, and who sub- 
sequently occupied the position of the sultan’s mother or 


1 Nineteenth Century, 1888. 


342 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


vale, though the office has been somewhat shorn of its 
privileges. 

His health being delicate, he was never urged to make 
much progress in his studies ; but after his visit to the courts 
of Europe with his uncle Abdul Aziz, and his brother Murad, 
he acquired a strong liking for European ways of life, and 
developed a great desire to improve himself in certain 
branches of learning, especially in geography and topog- 
raphy. He has a large collection of maps and charts, and 
nothing pleases him better than a gift of photographs of 
remarkable places. Before coming to the throne, after 
which for a while all his wishes were made subservient to 
those of his ministers, he had expressed himself as well 
aware that the friendly feelings of Europe toward Turkey 
could not but have been checked by the outrages in Bul- 
garia; that the credit of the country ought to be restored 
by economy ; that justice should be done to public cred- 
itors, and control established over the finances to put a 
stop to corruption. 

On August 31, 1876, Abdul Hamid was proclaimed sul- 
tan, and was at once girt with the sword of Othman, the 
people looking on without any demonstration of satisfaction 
or enthusiasm. Six weeks later it was announced that a 
scheme of reform for the whole Ottoman Empire was in 
course of preparation. 

This instrument made its appearance in the following 
January. It was a much less sweeping reform than Midhat 
wished, or could have had granted under Sultan Murad ; 
nevertheless it provided for a Senate, and a House of Rep- 
resentatives, which last was to take control of the finances ; 
the system of taxation was to be revised, and better laws 
were to be enacted for the provinces. Election to the lower 
house was to be by universal suffrage ; for the upper house 
electors were restricted to two classes: the noble, and the 
educated. 

Abdul Hamid seems cordially to have disapproved of 
this check on the absolute power enjoyed by his prede- 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 343 


cessors. He was willing to do justice, and to temper it 
with mercy; but to be placed in the. position of a servant 
of his people was odious to him. Indeed that very phrase, 
reported to him as having been used by one of the 
reformers, poisoned his mind against Midhat Pasha. 

At a council held when only his other ministers were 
present, the sultan asked what should be done with Midhat 
Pasha. Two of those present answered, “ Let him die.” 
But Abdul Hamid has never been bloodthirsty. It was 
decided to banish him to Arabia, and he was arrested at 
once, as he was entering the Council Chamber. We have 
seen how two years later a charge was trumped up against 
him of having, in conjunction with Hussein Avni, instigated 
the murder of Abdul Aziz. 

There were two sessions of the Turkish Parliament, which 
conducted itself in a manner that at once filled those who 
wished well to Turkish reform with admiration and surprise. 
But the sultan was unwilling to rule as a constitutional 
sovereign; the pashas, against whose cruelty and corrup- 
tion most of the reforms were aimed, sided with their 
sovereign ; the triumvirate held the reins of power, and 
was restive when its acts, pronounced unconstitutional by 
the Parliament, had to be defended in a manner never 
before heard of in the Ottoman Empire. A return to the 
old methods was effected in the old way. By the will of 
the sultan the constitution was abrogated, and before long 
the dismission of the ministers who had formed the trium- 
virate followed. 

Since then Abdul Hamid has governed alone. Huis rare 
industry, his unexampled economy, his steadfastness of 
purpose, and his moral courage, have won for him the 
respect and affection of his subjects, and the commendation 
of foreigners who visit his capital. 

He had been called to the throne in the darkest moment 
of Turkish history. The State had recently declared 
itself bankrupt ; its finances were in a state of chaos; war 
was going on with Servia, and was impending with Russia ; 


344 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


besides which all Christian powers were exasperated by the 
outrages in Bulgaria. Eighteen months after Abdul Hamid’s 
accession, Russian troops had threatened his capital, and 
extorted the Treaty of San Stefano. The Congress of Ber- 
lin, while it tore up this treaty, consulted only the interests 
of western Europe in the provisions that replaced it, and 
they greatly reduced the area of the sultan’s dominions. 

Abdul Hamid accepted the decision of the Congress, — 
he could not do otherwise, — but it taught him a policy to 
which he has strictly adhered. He dreads friends as much 
as enemies. He will enter into no entangling alliances 
with any Christian nation. He works with an energy that 
wears out his ministers, but they are only heads of depart- 
ments; he keeps all power in his own hands. Like Queen 
Victoria he reads every despatch; and he gives his. own 
orders. This sometimes indeed impedes business, for 
there are limits to what the industry of any one man can 
do. He has every day all newspaper articles or paragraphs 
that appear in European papers and bear upon Turkey, or 
the general affairs of Europe, translated for him into Turk- 
ish; for he is no linguist, speaking fluently no language 
but his own; and he never has been known to sign a paper 
without first reading it. He has established a government 
printing-press, and now, “ by imperial command, all the 
most important literary and scientific works of Europe are 
issued in translation at Constantinople.” 

Probably the most trustworthy account of Sultan Abdul 
Hamid has been given us by the Hungarian Professor 
Arminius Vambéry. ‘This wonderful linguist and enterpris- 
ing traveller, was a poor lame boy apprenticed by his parents 
to a dressmaker. From this employment he ran away, and 
through unheard-of difficulties, procured himself an educa- 
tion, — learning all the languages of Europe, so that he 
speaks and writes them like a native. In 1860, he went 
to Turkey, where he became known as Reschid Effendi. 
He adopted Turkish manners and Turkish dress ; and made 
his way to Persia. There he assumed the character of a 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 345 


mollah, or ecclesiastic, and travelled, in company with a 
band of dervishes (the Callenders of the Arabian Nights) 
to Bokhara, and Samarcand. His story is so very interesi- 
ing that I have long wondered that it is so little known. 
Not long ago he revisited, by railroad, the scenes of his 
painful, dangerous, toilsome desert journey; and in the 
preceding chapter I have quoted largely what he says 
about the changes which, since 1860, have taken place in 
Central Asia. He spent some time in Turkey two years 
since, and while there was admitted on terms of companion- 
ship and intimacy to intercourse with the present sultan, 
whom he had known very slightly more than a quarter of 
a century before, when the future Padishah, a lad of sixteen, 
was only Hamid Effendi; but his pronounced Oriental 
features, his expressive eyes, and his reserved and dignified 
manner had stamped themselves, even at that age, on 
Vambéry’s memory. As Professor Vambéry is one of the 
few Europeans whom Sultan Abdul Hamid has favored with 
his confidence, I can hardly do better than quote what he 
has said of him in his own words : — 


‘“‘T must own that the education of Abdul Hamid, like that of 
all Oriental princes, was defective, very defective indeed; but 
an iron will, good judgment, and rare acuteness, have made 
good this shortcoming, and he not only knows the multifarious 
relations and intricacies of his own much-tried empire, but is 
thoroughly conversant with European politics; and I am not 
going far from the fact when I state that it has been solely the 
moderation and self-restraint of Sultan Abdul Hamid which 
have saved us hitherto from a general European conflagration. 
To all pressure from Russia, and central European powers, to 
vindicate by arms his rights in Eastern Roumelia, he answered 
with the Arab saying, ‘ Peace is the best of all judges.’ As to 
his personal character, I have found the present ruler of the 
Ottoman Empire of great politeness, amiability, and extreme 
gentleness. When sitting opposite to him during my private 
interviews, I could not avoid being struck by his extremely 
modest attitude, by his quiet manners, and by the bashful look 
of his eyes. He carefully avoids in conversation all allusion to 
his position as a ruler, and when unavoidably obliged to men: 


346 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXT4# CENTURY. 


tion the beginning of his reign, he invariably says, ‘Since I 
came to this place.’ He has ever since that time shown himself 
anxious to do away with the encumbering etiquette of Oriental 
court life, and he likes to show himself plain, civil, and unaffected 
to his visitors. He drives himself, even in public; his. dress is 
scrupulously plain. He has discarded the azgretze, worn on the 
fez by his predecessors as a sign of royalty. At his table, 
though wine is served to European guests, it is not offered to 
_ the sultan, or any other Mohammedan. 

‘‘ His views on religion, politics, and education have a decid- 
edly modern tone, and yet he is a firm believer in the tenets of 
his religion, and likes to assemble round him the foremost 
mollahs and pious sheiks, on whom he profusely bestows 
imperial favors; but he does not forget from time to time to 
send presents to the Greek and Armenian patriarchates; and 
nothing is more ludicrous than to hear this prince accused by a 
certain class of politicians in Europe of being a fanatic, and an 
enemy to Christians, —a prince who by appointing a Christian 
for his chief medical attendant, and a Christian for his chief 
minister of finance, did not hesitate to intrust most important 
duties to non-Mohammedans. Sultan Abdul Hamid is the first 
Ottoman ruler in whose hospitality, not only European princes 
and ambassadors and distinguished visitors from the West, but 
his own Christian subjects, amply partake. He is the first Otto- 
man ruler who has publicly encouraged the arts of painting and 
of sculpture, in spite of those arts being strictly forbidden by 
orthodox Mohammedanism; and during one of my visits he 
pointed out to me, with a certain pride, two pictures in his saloz 
as having been painted by Moslem pupils, brought up in the 
School of Art in Stamboul; and I can state with confidence 
that, if the Turks continue steadily on the way inaugurated by 
their present ruler, and if political complication does not offer 
any hindrance, they will soon reach a level of culture on which 
they may secure a firm basis of mental and economical devel- 
opment, and future political existence. 

““* It is for this purpose,’ said the sultan one day to me, ‘that 
peace is now the object of my desire; peace alone can cure the 
manifold evils and shortcomings of the past; order and security 
can only be introduced by civil officers trained and educated in 
the school of modern social and political life.” In accordance 
with these views a new spirit seems to have taken hold of the 
whole people; the language and literature have undergone an 
essential change; while I am writing this paper I have on my 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 347 


table various Turkish books and treatises on social economy, 
history, astronomy, geography, etc., which are sent to me for 
review, and some of which are really admirable. Of course 
there is much, very much, to be done yet in the way of public 
instruction, for the great bulk of the people is totally ignorant 
and neglected; but educational progress does not permit of 
leaps and bounds, and we are only doing justice to the praise- 
worthy efforts of Sultan Abdul Hamid in mentioning that he is 
sincerely bent on the amelioration and mental development of 
his subjects. . . 

‘In reference to the charge of ruthless despotism laid upon 
Sultan Abdul Hamid, in connection with his abrogation of the 
charter granted during the first months of his reign, I will also 
quote his own words. He said to me one day: ‘In Europe the 
soil was prepared centuries ago for liberal institutions ; and now 
I am asked to transplant a sapling to the foreign, stony, and 
rugged ground of Asiatic life. Let me clear away the thistles 
and stones, let me till the soil, and provide for irrigation, because 
rain is very scarce in Asia, and then we may transport the new 
plant; and believe me that nobody will be more delighted at its 
thriving than myself.’ 

‘‘We need not shut our eyes to the deplorable conditions 
under which Turkey is laboring; we must not lose sight of 
ruined villages, neglected roads, decaying towns, choked har- 
bors, and an impoverished population; but we can be, nay, we 
must be, indulgent, and, instead of always finding fault with the 
Mohammedan Turk, we should begin to discard all political 
bias in our judgment of an Eastern prince and of his people.” 


These are the words of a man who knows what he is 
talking about, who has dwelt with Turks, who speaks their lan- 
guage as well as he writes English, and we find his judgment 
of their ruler confirmed on all sides. Not only was Abdul 
Hamid the sincere personal friend of the author of “ Ben 
Hur,” which ought of itself to create among Americans a 
prejudice in his favor, but we have the impressions of the 
American minister, the Hon. S. S. Cox, who succeeded 
General Wallace, and who has published his “ Diversions 
of a Diplomat,” which, though based on far less knowledge 
than the writings of Professor Vambéry, confirm his conclu- 
sions. Mr. Cox says of the sultan : — 


348 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


“He is middle-sized and of the Turkish type. He wears a 
full black beard, is of a dark complexion, and has very expres- 
sive eyes. His forehead is large, indicative of intellectual 
power. He is very gracious in his manner, though at times 
seemingly a little embarrassed. . . . You may ask how he is 
dressed. I have generally seen him in a blue-black frock coat, 
closely buttoned, edged with red cord. He is a graceful rider, 
and when on horseback, like his fellow-countrymen, he shows 
to advantage. His title ‘sultan’ does not signify all the power 
he possasses as an absolute ruler, but yet it signifies much. 
‘Padishah’ signifies most. It is the chief and favorite title. It 
signifies ‘ Father of all the Sovereigns of the Earth.’ As caliph 
he is the Divine representative of Mahomet. His family line 
runs back with unbroken links to the thirteenth century. . . . He 
is one of the most industrious, painstaking, honest, conscientious 
and vigilant rulers of the world. He is amiable and just withal. 
His every word betokens a good heart and a sagacious head. 
He is an early riser. After he leaves his seraglio and has par- 
taken of a slight repast, his secretaries wait on him with port- 
folios. He peruses all the official correspondence, and current 
reports. He gives up his time till noon to work of this charac- 
ter. Then his breakfast is served. After that he walks in his 
park and gardens, looks in at his aviaries, perhaps stirs up his 
menagerie, makes an inspection of his two hundred horses in 
their fine stables, indulges his little daughters in a row upon the 
fairy lake which he has had constructed, and, it may be, attends 
a performance at the little theatre provided for his children in 
the palace. At 5 Pp. M., having accomplished most of his official 
work, he mounts his favorite white horse Ferhan, a war-scarred 
veteran, for a ride in the park. The park of the palace of 
Yildiz, where he lives, comprises some thousand acres. It is 
surrounded by high walls, and protected by the soldiery. Often- 
times, being a fine shot, he tries his aim upon some of the wild 
fowl which are decoyed on to the waters of the park. He is at 
the palace for dinner at seven. When without guests he dines 
alone; when he receives company he dines after the European 
method. It would be a task to make a catalogue of the gold 
and silver candelabra and massive éfergnes which, with their 
flowers and fruits, decorate the table. When foreigners are 
present Munir Pasha, his first chamberlain, acts as interpreter, 
standing behind his Majesty’s gold chair. He offers wine to 
his guests, but Ze indulges only in water. A fine military band 
plays during the meal. The servants are dressed in scarlet with 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 349 


gold epaulets. You would think they were mutes by the quiet 
way they serve. It is understood, of course, that the wives of 
the sultan are never at the table. The wives of others are fre- 
quently invited (Americans or Europeans), but on such occa- 
sions the sultan does not preside. If the sultan desires to con- 
verse with any one, there is a convenient room where cigarettes 
and coffee assist the conversation. But it is all over by ten 
o'clock. Imperial carriages for the guests are then at the 
door.” 


Abdul Hamid takes particular interest in natural history, 
and has collections of stuffed animals and impaled insects 
of all kinds. He is also greatly interested in trees and in 
fruit raising. Professor Vambéry speaks of having one day 
been presented with a dish of strawberries laid out in vari- 
ous lines according to the shadings of the fruit, headed by 
a bit of paper bearing the inscription: “ From_ plants 
reared by the hand of his Majesty.” On another occasion 
an apple and a peach of extraordinary beauty were similarly 
sent to him. Several times before the arrival of Mr. Cox 
the sultan had expressed a wish to receive from America a 
collection of American fruit-bearing trees, shrubs, and ever- 
greens. He also desired photographic and stereoscopic 
views of scenery, buildings, and so forth, in the United 
States. The trees, I believe, have not been sent; but in 
May, 1886, Mr. Cox had the pleasure of presenting to his 
Majesty a very fine collection of photographic views of 
points of interest in America, and likewise a copy of the 
“Reports of the United States Census for 1880.” 


“The sultan was delighted with the gift. He selected some 
of the views from the hundreds before him, and placed them in 
the stereoscope, on which was inscribed on a silver plate: 
‘From the President of the United States to His Imperial 
Majesty, the Sultan of Turkey.’ They elicited expressions of 
delight and wonder. The photographs of the ‘Red Men’ at- 
tracted his eager attention. He asked many questions as to 
their origin, their movements, and their present numbers, con- 
dition,and government. I could see he surmised them to be of 
that Mongol race which in the cycles of history clustered in 


350 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


‘ Tartar tribes’ on the territory between the Himalayas and the 
Mediterranean ; out of which came the Seljukian Turks, wha 
almost conquered Europe, as well as a large part of Asia and 
Africa. He was anxious to know if our Indians amounted to 
much, and how we provided for them. I explained as well as 
I could the effects of white raids, whiskey, and ‘ Jand- grabbing,’ 
as well as the reservation plan. The towns and houses of the 
Zufi Indians attracted his attention; for they are counterparts 
of certain towns in Asia Minor. The sultan asked curiously, 
pointing to the minaret of the new mosque visible from the 
kiosk, if they believed in oze God? I gave him a brief outline 
of the natural religion of these people, who have almost ceased 
to be interesting to ourselves, except in romances, but who, as 
these photographs showed, are a source of infinite interest to the 
ethnologist.” 


There are four: palaces of note in Constantinople, — the 
old palace of Top-Kapou, the original residence of the 
conquerors of Constantinople ; the Tcheragan, where Abdul 
Aziz died, and where ex-Sultan Murad is now in confine- 
ment; the Dolma-Bagtché, a magnificent structure built by 
Sultan Abdul Medjid ; and the old Seraglio, to whose limits 
Prince Yussef Izzeddin and the other descendants of Abdul 
Aziz are restricted. 

Sultan Abdul Hamid rarely inhabits the Dolma-Bagtché 
Palace, though it is used sometimes for official receptions. 
In point of fact residence there is too expensive; it 
involves providing for six thousand people out of the im- 
perial treasury. The sultan, the first Ottoman ruler ever 
endowed with a spirit of economy, made it his first busi- 
ness, on coming to the throne, to reduce the expenses of his 
household. But there are many vested interests connected 
with a sultan’s harem; and though he has consistently dis- 
couraged unnecessary expenses, and is said to confine him- 
self to one wife, he cannot escape having at least three 
hundred ladies in his seraglio, according to the customs of 
his land and of his dynasty. About one hundred of these 
girls are married to pashas and great officers of State every 
year; and each of them is entitled to receive a marriage 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 351 


portion of fifty thousand dollars. As the sultan loathes the 
whole system, but is obliged to permit each vacancy to be. 
filled, a recent English ambassador strongly advised him to 
make a stand against it ; but was told that this would not be 
easy, seeing that every cabinet-minister and pasha of note 
looks upon passing his daughter through the sultan’s harem 
as asimple means of securing her a marriage portion and a 
brilliant establishment. 

The sultan ever since his accession, or rather ever since 
he tock power into his own hands, has preferred to live at 
Yildiz. This small palace is beautifully situated on the 
summit of a high hill, about two miles beyond the bounds 
of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, which it overlooks, is 
in front of it, and is two miles wide. It runs about a mile 
below the palace, and then melts into the Sea of Marmora. 
“ Vildiz”’ in Turkish means a szar. It is the star which lies 
between the horns of the Crescent. The park and grounds 
are of great extent, and are surrounded by a high wall to 
prevent intrusion. 

On Saturday, May 29, 1886, the American minister and 
his wife were invited to dine at the palace. Several ladies, 
wives of ministers and ambassadors, had been invited to 
meet Mrs. Cox, and very distinguished gentlemen and off- 
cials to meet her husband. On driving up to the palace, 
they noticed that the garden wall was one mass of Bankshia 
roses. 


“We were met,” says Mr. Cox, “at the vestibule by a grand 
pasha in uniform and decorations. We walked upon carpets, 
ascended and descended into the marble entrance, and were 
there invited to take off our wraps. We were then ushered into 
a small side-room, where we found the German ambassador and 
ambassadress with other invited guests, among them Dr. 
Mavroyeni, the sultan’s physician, whose son was subsequently 
Turkish minister to the United States. Thence in a few mo- 
ments we were summoned to the upper sa/oz, and presented in 
turn to the sultan by the master of ceremonies. The sultan 
cordially shook hands with all. When the ladies were seated 
on the divan, he called up the three princes, — his son, thep 


352 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


seventeen years old, and two nephews, who are being educated 
as his companions. These youths wore military suits, epaulets, 
spurs, and swords. Each was presented in turn. The sultan 
accompanied his guests to the door of the grand salon (we have 
seen that he never dines with ladies), gave us a parting saluta- 
tion, and remarked that he would continue the reception after 
dinner.” 


The dining-table was wide and long, with a gorgeous dis- 
play of flowers, lights, and crystal shades. The American 
minister and his wife were placed among the princes. One 
of these lads, Tewfik, was about ten years of age, — a meek, 
subdued-looking child. He spoke only Turkish. The 
other two could speak some French. ‘The princes seemed 
interested in geography. ‘They were curious about Egypt, 
which their guests had lately visited. They asked also 
about America. In turn the minister inquired about their 
amusements, but got little information. ‘Their exalted posi- 
tion apparently gave little scope for amusing themselves. 

After dinner all passed into a beautiful green and black 
tiled coffee-room to take coffee ; and there was presented to 
Mrs. Cox, by order of the sultan, the Grand Order of the 
Chefekat, — that is, the Order of Good Works. It was a 
star in brown, gold, and green enamel set with brilliants. 
It had five points, and twenty-six diamonds in each point. 
The order had originated in a wish to honor Lady Layard 
for her services in the hospitals during the Crimean War. 
Next the ladies were driven round the beautiful gardens, the 
gentlemen following on foot ; but no offer was nade to take 
any one into the harem. ‘“ The scene,” says Mr. Cox, “ was 
like one from the Arabian Nights. The beautiful lights in 
the garden and from the windows of the palace, the plashing 
fountains, and the fragrant air produced the impression of 
something magical and marvellous.” 

After that they returned to another sa/on, with a parquetted 
floor covered with rugs, divans, chairs, and tables. On the 
shelves were rare books. It was the sultan’s library. 
There he again received them, talking with them through 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 353 


an interpreter. A German violinist, accompanied on the 
piano by a pasha in attendance, gave some music. The 
sultan lighted a cigarette, and asked the gentlemen to join 
him. The ladies, who did not smoke, were offered tea in 
golden cups and saucers. Then the sultan, rising, took 
little Tewfik his nephew by the hand, and led him to the 
piano, saying to his guests: “This boy will give us some 
music, though he plays only by ear.” The quiet little 
prince played a spirited march, and then some selections 
from Norma. His father, a younger son of Abdul Medjid, 
had died when Tewfik was only a few months old, and the 
sultan had assumed his guardianship and education. 

The present heir to the throne by Ottoman law is Mehemet 
Reschid (or Richard). He is the third son of Abdul Medjid, 
and the next brother to the present sultan. Abdul Hamid 
in 1887 had six children, four sons and two daughters ; the 
oldest was the youth Mehemet Selim, presented to the 
American minister, who was born Jan. 1, 1871. The 
daughters were named Zekihe, and Naime. Besides Murad 
and Reschid, Abdul Hamid had three other brothers. These 
princes and others of the imperial family, with the exception 
of those confined to their palaces in semi-captivity, ‘ are 
often to be seen driving or riding about the city, and not 
unfrequently at the ‘Sweet Waters’ of Europe, where every 
class of people congregate. They are of distinguished 
appearance, and dress in Frank costume, except that each 
and all wear the inevitable fez.” 

The great difficulty that besets Abdul Hamid is the lack 
of enlightened and honest subordinates to carry out his 
plans for the welfare of his people. Being fully sensible of 
this, he has had it in view in the enlargement and improve- 
ment of the school system. It was remarked many years, 
since by travellers that Turks, however poor, could read and 
write, but this knowledge was acquired solely by reading 
the Koran; under Abdul Hamid more useful and more 
modern attainments can be acquired. He has frequently 
expressed the hope that improved education may supply 

“5 


354 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


himself and his successors with civil officers more upright 
and intelligent than those he is now able to send into country 
districts remote from his capital. Probably the worst gov- 
erned part of his dominions is Armenia. Thirty-three 
years ago, when Arminius Vambéry first travelled through 
that country, he found its provincial government was _horri- 
ble. In an Armenian village, recently plundered by ban- 
ditti, he asked: “‘ Why do you not get help from the gover- 
nor of Erzeroum?’’ “ Because,” answered the villagers, 
“he is at the head of the robbers. God alone, and his 
representative on earth, the Russian czar, can help us.” And 
we may be sure this feeling is kept alive by Russian agents. 
But the first care of Abdul Hamid, after something had been 
done to set straight the finances of the empire, which were 
in utter confusion, was to put down brigandage, — “one of 
the greatest curses of the Turkish Empire, affording a lucra- 
tive, if irregular, method of gaining a livelihood to thousands, 
and exercising a rule of terrorism and pressure.” 

The army had also to be organized and better disciplined ; 
and to this the sultan devoted himself with the same energy 
he had shown in other departments. 

It is universally conceded that the men of the Turkish 
army are admirable soldiers, and almost equally acknowl- 
edged that their officers are little competent to command 
them. But in no army in the world (unless it may be in 
the British army in India) is there a greater variety of race 
and hue than in the army of the sultan of Turkey. Up to 
less than ten years ago uniformity was required in but one 
thing, —all were expected to be Mohammedans. Chris- 
tians and Jews were not eligible for military service; they 
had to pay a military tax instead of serving in the army. 
Of late years, however, though neither enlisted nor con- 
scripted, they have been received as substitutes. 

The best troops in the army that held the Russians in 
check during the summer and autumn of 1877 were the 
Anatolian battalions. ‘Turks from Bosnia and Herzegovina 


1 St. James Gazette, 1886. 


SULTAN ABDUL HAMID. 355 


made splendid soldiers ; so did the descendants of the old 
Turks who had settled in Bulgaria. Strange to say, the 
Circassians showed little capacity for fight; they and the 
Pomaks, Bashi-Bazouks, Syrian Arabs, and Albanians were 
_more given to plunder and to outrage than to regular war- 
fare. Still, properly commanded, regularly paid, decently 
fed and clothed, the Turkish army is thought, by those 
acquainted with the subject, able to hold its own against 
almost any army in the world. 

‘¢ Few sultans,’ says a writer in the “ Leisure Hour,” an 
English magazine which has given excellent articles on 
eastern European affairs, “have been so beloved by their 
subjects as Abdul Hamid. Indeed he is to them quite a 
new type of sultan, and they do not fail to appreciate the 
novelty. He is a man who does not pass his days in his 
harem, toying with his slaves. He is a man who takes a 
real interest in public affairs, and who, far from following the 
example of his predecessors, and leaving the reins of gov- 
ernment in the hands of some clever courtiers, insists on 
seeing and judging all things for himself.” In this way, 
however, he sometimes causes vexatious delays. 

All American or European travellers admitted to his 
presence remark upon a look of uneasiness in his eyes, and 
it is known that he takes extraordinary precautions to secure 
his own safety. In this his prudence, nay, his patriotism, is 
to be applauded ; for he is the sole hope of Turkey, —a 
change of rulers would certainly produce confusion, and 
might destroy his cherished projects of reform. What 
sovereign in these days is not bound to take precautions ? 


“Abdul Hamid does not feel himself safe even in his own 
palace. He does not suspect any person in particular, but he is 
on his guard against every one. He knows too well that palace 
conspiracies are of frequent occurrence in the life of an Oriental 
sovereign, and he cannot forget the tragic events that led to his 
own elevation to the throne.” 


This account of Abdul Hamid is corroborated by all 
other accounts that I have read of him, with the exception 


356 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, 


of that of Count E. de Kératry, published in 1878, when 
the writer was burning with indignation at the deposition 
-and imprisonment of Sultan Murad, and when the new 
sultan had not taken the reins of power into his own hands. 
The ex-minister from the United States, Mr. Cox, from 
whose ‘ Diversions of a Diplomat” I have already quoted, 
sums up in eager words his impressions of Abdul Hamid. 
We should not accept of course the a@cza of an ex-diplomat, 
on the subject of the sovereign to whom he has been 
accredited, without a grain of salt; but, as I have said 
already, and have taken pains to show in my quotations, his 
views seem to be fully shared by others, who, speaking 
Turkish and admitted to personal intercourse with the 
sultan, have been better qualified than himself to under- 
stand him. He says: — 


‘Since the accession of the present sultan it is apparent that 
his rule has permeated the empire with a wise and honest sov- 
ereignty. I have observed heedfully much of the progress of 
Turkey during the last three decades, and from what I have 
seen of it I believe that the sultan, being himself a Turk, is the 
only man who can give Turkey the proper impulse to overcome 
the wzs znertie of her laggard progress, so as to bring her forth 
into the light and liberty of a new civilization. If you question 
the ability of this people for self-advancement, look for the 
inspiration of their remarkable race and rule; and you will find 
an answer in those rare qualities which Gibbon catalogued when 
he said, ‘ The Turks are distinguished for their patience, disci- 
pline, sobriety, bravery, honesty, and modesty.’ It is because 
of these solid characteristics, and in spite of the harem, in spite 
of autocratic power, in spite of the Janissary and the seraglio, 
that this race and rule remain potent in the Orient. It is a 
good omen that the head of the Turkish government to-day is 
a man of honest intentions and clear intellect, and that he gives 
unremittingly his time to the service of his people. He is not 
merely an amiable and humane prince, but wisely versed in 
statesmanship. His heart is touched by suffering, and his views 
lean strongly to that toleration of the various races and religions 
of his realm which other and more boastful nations would do 
well to imitate.” 4 

1 See note on page 404. 


CHAPTER XV. 
THE TWO DANUBIAN KINGDOMS. —SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. 


he seems a distracting task to unravel so tangled a skein as 
the history of the Danubian kingdoms, provinces, and 
principalities (namely, Servia, Roumania, Bosnia, Herzego- 
vina, Montenegro, and Bulgaria) during the last half-cen- 
tury. When the Crimean War broke out in 1854 these 
countries were more or less part of the sultan’s dominions. 
Some enjoyed autonomy, but paid tribute; some were 
Turkish provinces under the capricious rule of a Turkish 
pasha; all have now been rent out of the sultan’s hand. 
Two (Servia and Roumania) are independent kingdoms ; 
two (Montenegro and Bulgaria) are kingdoms in every- 
thing but name; while Bosnia and Herzegovina have been 
virtually united to Austria; and heartily as they hated the 
Turks, they do not seem satisfied with the exchange. 

The united wisdom of the Great Powers at Berlin in 1878 
endeavored to erect these feeble States into a barrier be- 
tween Russia and Constantinople. The story to be told in 
these last chapters is the story of the erection of this bar- 
rier, and of the persistent efforts made by Russia to break 
it down. 

The present czar, as we have seen, is Slavonic to the 
backbone. A Russian Russia is his dream and his ideal. 
He is not a Pan-Slavist. He is not willing to sacrifice Rus- 
sia for Slavs, but within the bounds of Holy Russia Slavs 
are not only to be the dominant race, they are, as far as 
possible, to be the only one. The idea of a Pan-Slavonic 
federation is, however, all-powerful among the educated 


358 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


class in his dominions. It is almost as dangerous to the 
emperor as Nihilism ; indeed, it has been eho to result 
in Nihilistic practices. 

The Slav peoples of Europe are the Riese the Poles, 
the peasantry of the Baltic provinces of Russia, the Servians, 
the Montenegrins, the population of Bosnia and Herzego- 
vina, the inhabitants of the restless dependencies of the 
kingdom of Hungary, the Bulgarians, who, although not 
pure Slavs, are closely afflhated with them in language and 
religion, and the Czechs of Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian 
Galicia, —a turbulent race, who are at this moment trying 
the patience of the Austrian emperor. 

In the midst of this Slav population lie two nations in- 
tensely hostile to Slavs: the Magyars (or Hungarians), and 
the Roumanians. To fuse these into a Slavonian federa- 
tion with their own consent would seem impossible ; yet to 
obtain their submission seems indispensable to the realiza- 
tion of the Pan-Slavonic idea. 

The Slavs in Europe are said, roughly, to number eighty 
millions. There are Slavs under the rule of the German 
Empire ; the Reichstag contains a considerable Polish vote, 
representing German Slavs; the Slavs in Austria are esti- 
mated to number thirteen millions; those in Servia a mil- 
lion and a half. In Roumania, Bulgaria, and Eastern Rou- 
melia they abound, and if, as they say, “the Germans 
have reached their day; the English their mid-day; the 
French their afternoon; the Italians their evening; the 
Spaniards their night; but the Slavs stand on the threshold 
of their morning,” powerful empires must go down before 
them, and the present policy and civilization of Europe 
must be greatly changed. 

But among the various branches of the old Slavonic stock 
there is no point of unity. ‘There is no such thing as a 
Slav language. A Russian does not understand a Bulgarian ; 
a Bulgarian does not understand a Pole; a Servian does 
not understand a Czech. These various so-called Slav 
communities have no common grammar; not even an en- 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. 359 


tirely common alphabet. They have each of them a distinct 
literature, such as it is, a different history, and different 
traditions.” ‘The utmost that can be said in support of their 
nationality is that far back in history, ‘ even earlier than the 
days of Herodotus,” they seem to have migrated from east- 
ern Asia,—not in one vast horde, like other conquering 
barbarians, but in tribes and families, settling, as they jour- 
neyed westward from the Caspian, on unoccupied plains. 

The Servians claim descent from an organized commun- 
ity of Slavs invited by the Emperor Heraclius to people 
Danubian lands laid waste by the Avars. When they 
adopted Christianity part joined the Greek Church, and 
part the Church of Rome. Fora brief period, during the 
reign of one man, Stephen Dushan (from 1333 to 1355), 
there was a powerful Servian kingdom, including Bosnia, 
Herzegovina, and other neighboring territories; but after 
the downfall of Dushan, and the disastrous fight of his suc- 
cessor at Kossova, the component parts of this Servian em- 
pire fell asunder. In course of time the Servians and all 
others of their race along the Danube were conquered by 
the Ottomans. The nobles, to preserve their privileges, 
adopted Mohammedanism, and the land became “ one of 
the dark places of the earth, full of the habitations of 
cruelty.” 

About the year 1804, when the attention of the world was 
fixed upon the mighty conqueror in western Europe, and 
there was little interest to spare for a peasant insurrection 
in an obscure province of Turkey, “(a simple peasant of 
darker complexion than is usual with his countrymen, and 
thence Kara George, or Black George, by name, fled to the 
mountains, a ruined man, leaving a home desolated by the 
Turks. With a heart on fire for revenge he gathered 
together a number of men made desperate like himself, and 
became a sort of Robin Hood.’ He was, however, far 
more ferocious than that genial outlaw. By degrees the 
lawless acts of himself and of his band became extolled as 
heroic deeds in a righteous cause by the sympathizing peas: 


360 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


antry ; for to seize and plunder a wealthy Moslem was in 
their eyes no crime. 

At a great meeting in the depths of a dark forest held by 
Servians ripe for insurrection, Kara George was nominated 
their leader. ‘‘ But he stepped out of the crowd and cried: 
‘Brothers! why do you call for me? A leader of Serbs 
should be mild and forbearing. I am an angry man, unable 
to keep my temper. Choose some one else.’ ‘ We need 
an angry man. We want a man of iron!’ was the reply. 
‘But, by God!’ cried Kara George, ‘if I order a man to 
do anything, and he doeth it not, I shall slash off his 
head!’ A shout went up: ‘You are the man we want! 
You are our chief and leader !’”’! 

After this the successes of the patriots under such leader- 
ship struck terror into the ruling race. There was a swift 
rush of the Turks into their fortresses, and for a moment 
the Servians found themselves a free people, but with a ter- 
rible war impending, in which no mercy would be shown. 
They were not, however, fighting for independence ; their 
struggle was simply for deliverance from oppression. They 
offered to submit to the sultan on condition that the Moslem 
military aristocracy should leave the province, and that its 
government should be administered by a pasha appointed 
by the sultan himself; that an improvement should be made 
in the methods of taxation, and only such taxes exacted as 
had been fixed in 1773 by a firman from the sultan; that 
courts of justice should be established throughout the 
province ; that towns should choose their own mayors, sub- 
ject to the approval of the governing pasha; that Christians 
might build monasteries and churches ; and that they might 
choose themselves a chief through whom should pass all 
communications between the Sublime Porte and the Ser- 
vian race. 

These terms were not listened to for a moment, and the 
war was carried on with increasing ferocity till 1812; the 
Servians not only fighting the Turks, but exhausting their 
strength by factious squabbles among themselves. 


1 Cf. British Quarterly Review. 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. 361 


Another leader had risen up among them, — Milosch 
Obrenovitch, ‘the pig-driver;’’ and to this day the dy- 
nastic quarrel between the descendants of Kara George 
and the descendants of Milosch Obrenovitch has not been 
terminated. 

When Russia and Turkey signed a treaty of peace at 
Bucharest on the eve of the French invasion of Russia, it 
was stipulated that the Servians should be pardoned for 
their rebellion. ‘The sultan promised reforms in the inter- 
nal administration of their province, and was himself to fix 
the amount of their taxation. 

Like all Turkish promises made by treaty, these failed in 
the performance. ‘The Servians again took arms, but the 
forces let loose on their luckless land were overwhelming. 
The panic-stricken peasants fled in crowds into Austria. 
Servia was once more conquered ‘“‘and lay wounded and 
bleeding at the feet of Asiatic soldiers.” 

Kara George fled over the frontier with his people, but 
Milosch Obrenovitch remained behind. He was kept in 
the fortress of Belgrade as a sort of hostage, while horrors 
of Turkish vengeance fell upon his people. Before his eyes 
the Turkish pasha impaled one hundred and seventy Ser- 
vians before the walls of the fortress, and tortures of all 
kinds were inflicted upon prisoners. ‘ Milosch, of course, 
was an object of intense suspicion, and was in hourly ex- 
pectation of death. . . . He determined to put himself at 
the head of another rising ; but how to get out of Belgrade 
was a difficult question. He was rich and offered the pasha 
a large sum for the ransom of certain Servian prisoners, pro- 
posing to pay down half the money if he were suffered to 
pass over into Austria and raise the rest by selling a herd 
of swine. The pasha consented, though reluctantly, and 
Milosch plunged at once into the heart of Servia.” 

In the spring of 1815, when Europe was gathering to- 
gether all her strength for the great struggle at Waterloo, 
an immense assembly of Servians was again held in the 
dark depths of a forest, and Milosch Obrenovitch, in full 


362 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


fighting costume, waving aloft the flag of Servia (a white 
cross on a red ground), roused his countrymen to arms, and 
offered himself as their leader. 

Again the war raged; but the Turks at length proposed 
a peace, addressing themselves to Milosch as the champion 
of his people. At that crisis the old hero, Kara George, 
stepped forth from his exile with the design of breaking up 
the negotiation; but a few days later he was murdered in 
his bed. Peace was made with the Turks, and Milosch was 
recognized as head of his nation. 

When Milosch, however, became a ruler, he ceased to 
be a hero. He grew insolent, stupid, and cruel. His rule 
became so oppressive that it effaced from the minds of his 
subjects the recollection of his services, and they drove him 
from their country. His son Michael succeeded him, but 
died soon after. His second son, Milan, came after Michael. 
He ruled so badly that his subjects drove him into exile in 
1842. They then called Alexander Karageorgevitch, son 
of their first leader, to the throne. Him they exiled in 
1858. 

After this the Skouptchina, or National Assembly, recalled 
old Milosch Obrenovitch, who was living in Austria. He 
reigned for a year, and on dying was succeeded by his 
youngest son, named Michael, like the eldest. An English 
writer and journalist’ who claims to have known Prince 
Michael well says of him: — 


“A stancher, more straight-forward, and more single-minded 
man than Michael Obrenovitch III. I never knew, nor one 
whose decisions upon any issue submitted to his judgment were 
more uniformly dictated by a principle of rectitude. In any coun- 
try he would have achieved distinction, so clear was his intellect 
and so indomitable his energy. For Servia, in which his lot 
was cast, he was a thousand times too honest, intelligent, and 
incorruptible. His virtues, in fact, were a standing reproach 
to his subjects by contrast with their vices, and the time came 
when, unable any longer to endure the rule of so virtuous and 
chivalrous a gentleman, they slaughtered him in cold blood.” 


1 Monarchs I Have Met, by W. Beatty-Kingston. 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. 363 


Meantime, in 1862, a quarrel between some Turkish 
soldiers in the garrison at Belgrade and the Servian popu- 
lation of that city led to the bombardment of the town by 
the Turkish commander of the fortress, which Turkey had 
been permitted to retain as a concession to her dignity. 
After much diplomatic dispute Sultan Abdul Aziz resigned 
the stronghold, the most important military position on the 
Danube, into Prince Michael’s hands. 

The Turkish evacuation took place with great ceremony 
ON A piimete 1G 7. « Lhereaiten thes prince bent. all his 
energies to give to Servia a new and really independent 
life, and by his exertions she was placed in a better position 
than she had been since the fall of Stephen Dushan, five 
centuries before. Mr. Kingston says, however: “ Prince 
Michael’s throne was not lined with swan’s-down. He had 
a great deal to put up with from his subjects, — as difficult 
to lead or drive as their own pigs.”’ In a conversation with 
Mr. Kingston the prince said, not long before his death, — 


‘“‘ My father was a man of humble origin and but little instruc- 
tion, but he was a genius, and performed what was little short 
of a miracle in raising the Servian nationality up out of the 
mire into which it had been trodden. I am no genius, but I 
was brought up abroad, under the influences of civilization, and 
I have worked very hard to profit by the advantages which 
Providence has bestowed on me. The sultan’s generosity has 
made me a free prince of a free country. Never believe that 
I shall break my word to the sultan or fail to keep my faith 
to the Sublime Porte. But in many things my ministers and 
the leading men of the province are against me. As long as 
I believe myself to be right, I shall try to carry out my own 
convictions. God knows whether I shall succeed, for many 
of my own countrymen hate me, though I have never done 
any man a wrong willingly.” 


While Prince Michael was thus resolved to be true to his 
engagements to the sultan, Peter Karageorgevitch, the rep- 
resentative of Kara George’s family, was in sympathy with 
Russia, and quietly conducted a conspiracy for a change of 
rulers and a change of policy. 


364. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


“It was Prince Michael’s custom to walk daily after his 
hours of work in the Park of Toptchidére, a lovely spot about 
three miles from Belgrade. Here he was wont to throw off all 
restraint, and accompanied by some of the ladies of his family, 
and perhaps an aide-de-camp, to spend an hour in the glades 
of the forest. In the afternoon of the roth of June, 1868, the 
prince was thus engaged, when he met three individuals in 
European costume. Asthe park was open to any decent citizen 
this caused no surprise. They saluted his Highness and passed 
him. No sooner was his back turned than the crash of revol- 
vers told of a tragedy. The prince fell, and the murderers 
rushed on him, stabbing and gashing the dying man with their 
knives. The two ladies, his relatives, were also attacked, one 
being desperately wounded, the other killed. Luckily the vet- 
eran minister Garashanin was within hearing, and when he had 
ascertained the cause of the pistol shots, he leaped upon a horse 
and galloped into Belgrade before the conspirators in that city 
were quite prepared. Having alarmed the authorities, got the 
troops under arms, and the police on the alert, the assassins 
and their accomplices were seized; and thus was a civil dynastic 
war averted, for it became evident that the movement was in 
favor of the deposed dynasty —the Karageorgevitch. <A long 
trial of the conspirators ensued, and twenty suffered death for 
participation in the plot.” + 


Thus, mainly through the exertions of one man, the suc- 
cession of young Milan, nephew and heir presumptive of 
Prince Michael, was secured; and Servia passed through 
the crisis without disorder or civil strife. A regency was 
appointed to guard the young prince and to govern the 
country during his four years’ minority. 

This lad, when ten years of age, had been sent to Paris 
for his education. He was placed at the Lycée of Louis le 
Grand, but he had also a private tutor. This personage 
was not deficient in learning, but he was very Bohemian in 
his tastes and associations. He frequented certain cafés 
in Paris, assembling-places of the class of men who subse- 
quently became leaders of the Commune. There he would 
sit for hours talking politics and literature with Cluseret, 


1 British Quarterly Review. 


KING MILAN OF SERVIA. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URBANA 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. 365 


Courbet, Felix Pyat, Rochefort, and even Ferré and Raoul 
Rigault. The boy sat by his side, and listened while they 
talked. It was an unusual training for an heir-presumptive. 

Prince Milan was fourteen when his uncle was assassi- 
nated. He grew up a handsome young man, rather too 
much addicted to the-adornment of his person, but still 
princely and popular. When he came of age he indulged 
himself with a visit to Paris, where he found most of his old 
associates either shot or transported to New Caledonia. 
Marshal MacMahon, then President of France, gave him 
the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. He sowed a 
plentiful crop of wild oats during his travels, and has ever 
since been reaping them. 

In 1875 he married Natalie de Keczko, daughter of a 
colonel in the Russian army. This lady soon became popu- 
lar among the Servians. She was quick-witted and fasci- 
nating, and was devoted to her husband’s interests, in spite 
of his notorious unfaithfulness and his habit of gambling. 

During the last twenty years there have been two parties 
in Servia, — one aristocratic, or Austrian; the other, led by 
M. Ristics, radical or Russian. It was to this last that 
Prince Milan, on attaining his majority, seemed to incline. 
His early Parisian associations may have familiarized him 
with radicalism ; the influence of his wife, and the persua- 
sions of Russian agents, servants of the “mission,” may 
have inclined him to Russia. Prince Michael said to Mr. 
Kingston : — 


“Tt is constantly being impressed on me, and in a very ur- 
gent manner, as well by some of my most eminent country- 
men as by Russian gentlemen who honor me with their visits, 
that Servia has to look to Russia for all manner of future 
benefits and aggrandizement, and that she is the only friend we 
have in Europe.” 


The revolt against the Turks in Bosnia and Herzegovina 
in 1875, which was at first rather a peasant rising against 
tax-gatherers than a rebellion, roused the Servians to fury. 


366 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


‘¢ Hatred to the Turk,” Prince Michael said, “is in their 
blood.” 

Austrian influence restrained the Servian government for 
a while from taking part in the quarrel; but Servia is only 
separated from Bosnia by the river Drina, and numbers of 
Servians passed over the frontier to fight the Turks, while 
pressure was brought upon the prince and his ministers to 
force them to reverse the policy of Prince Michael and 
take sides with the insurgents. 

These councils, combined with popular enthusiasm, pre- 
vailed. War was declared with the Turks. Russian officers 
flocked into Servia to join the Servian army, and were much 
disappointed with all they found there. Then came the 
declaration of war between Russia and Turkey in the spring 
of 1877. Before that time, however, Servia, having been 
worsted in every encounter by Osman Pasha, had made 
peace, and took no part in the Russian War. 

Servia was made a kingdom in 1882, chiefly through the 
influence of Austria, and after that the Western world seems 
to have lost all interest in her affairs for several years. She 
was supposed to be growing in order, peace, prosperity, and 
education. The only unsatisfactory rumors that reached 
the general public were reports of disagreements between 
Queen Natalie and her husband. 

King Milan, after Austria had promoted his elevation, 
had changed his political views. He had become more 
aristocratic and more Austrian ; less Russian and radical. 

In 1886 Eastern Roumelia made a sudden revolution. 
She cast off the Christian governor assigned to her by the 
sultan, and implored Prince Alexander of Bulgaria to annex 
her to his dominions. ‘This was no part of the policy of 
Russia. It seemed possible it would make Alexander of 
Bulgaria too powerful; and he was a prince loathed by the 
Russian emperor, as well as by the German chancellor. 
Neither was it the policy of Austria to increase the limits of 
Bulgaria, for the prosperity of that semi-Slavonic state 
might increase the restlessness of her own Slavonic popula- 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA., 367 


tion. She therefore encouraged King Milan to oppose the 
aggrandizement of Bulgaria, and (taking a leaf out of the 
rules and regulations of the Great Powers) to put forth a 
claim that if Bulgaria, by violating the Treaty of Berlin, 
acquired Eastern Roumelia, Servia should be compensated 
by acquiring two districts belonging to Bulgaria. 

King Milan took the diplomatists of Europe by surprise 
when he declared war against Bulgaria. Two States re- 
cently emancipated from Turkey seizing each other by the 
throat, was a spectacle that disappointed philanthropists 
and disconcerted politicians. 

Hostilities were very brief. Almost before the Western 
world had heard of the declaration of war, Prince Alexander 
with sixteen thousand men had defeated a much larger 
force of Servians at Slivnitza, a place nearly in the heart of 
Bulgaria. He had pursued them as they made a rapid re- 
treat into Servia, and was going on to follow up his victory, 
when he was forced to make peace by Austria, who threat- 
ened to join the Serbs if he advanced into their country.. 
“T cannot fight the whole world,” he said, throwing open 
the palms of his hands in a deprecating manner. 

The Servians were so disgusted with the war, and with 
the way their king had conducted it, that but for the popu- 
larity of Queen Natalie they would have dethroned him. 

Instead of being grateful to his queen for her influence 
in his behalf, King Milan became jealous of her popularity, 
—not jealous in the French meaning of the word, for 
Queen Natalie’s faithfulness as a wife had not been called 
in question, — but jealous of her political influence, which, 
now that he was in alliance with Austria, it displeased him 
should be exerted in favor of the czar. 

Prompted by this jealousy he resolved ona divorce, but 
as this could not be procured by ecclesiastical means, he 
took King Henry VIII. for his example, and applied to a 
body of lawyers to grant him a release from the obligations 
of his marriage. 

By this means he obtained a sham divorce, and exiled 


368 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


Queen Natalie from Servia. She was followed to a German 
watering-place by agents of her husband, who forcibly ab- 
ducted her son, Prince Alexander, then a boy ten years 
old, and carried him back to Servia, in violation of the 
rights of the State in which they found him. 

King Milan, as an offset to his unpopularity caused by 
his domestic conduct, next endeavored to regain favor with 
the radical, or Russian party, led by M. Ristics; but his 
efforts to do this having failed, he took the world by sur- 
prise by his sudden abdication. 

His son Alexander was proclaimed king, and a regency 
was appointed. The lad was forbidden to hold intercourse 
-with his father or his mother. It is said he was deprived 
of playfellows, and confined strictly to the society of the 
regents who governed in his stead. Queen Natalie betook 
herself to St. Petersburg. King Milan went to Monte Carlo, 
where he soon lost at the gaming tables the large sum of 
money given him by the Servians to facilitate his abdication. 

The regents were perplexed by constant intrigues; now 
they feared that in some way the mother’s influence would 
be brought to bear upon her boy; now it was the father 
who was supposed to be conspiring for his own restoration. 
But on April'13, 1893, the toils, cares, responsibilities, and 
anxieties of these gentlemen came to an end. ‘The young 
King Alexander, born Aug. 14, 1876, lacked four months 
of his legal majority. In view of his approaching manhood 
the restrictions imposed on him had been relaxed, and he 
was residing in the Royal Palace of Belgrade with consider- 
able personal liberty. 

Besides the continual uneasiness caused by the rival 
intrigues of the royal parents, public affairs in Servia had 
gone badly during the regency. 


“For some months it had been a question whether under 
existing circumstances Servia would not relapse into anarchy, 
and the Obrenovitch dynasty give place to the Karageorgevitch, 
whose representative was supposed to be devoted to the inter- 
ests of Russia. The aristocratic or Austrian party, whose 


QUEEN NATHALIE. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF TLLINOIS 
URBANA 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. 369 


followers had named themselves Liberals, was the party in 
power. The feuds between the Liberals and the Radicals 
were irreconcilable. The regents recently, to secure a triumph 
in the Skouptchina, had had recourse to force and fraud. The 
result of disregard of law in the highest quarters was general 
disorder and prostration of business. Society needed a savior, 
and a plan was formed by the young king which worked with 
all the precision of Louis Napoleon’s famous coup d’E tat, save 
only that it was accomplished without bloodshed, and with as 
little violence as possible to personal liberty. 

“ King Alexander invited all the regents and all their minis- 
ters to a State banquet at the palace, on the evening of 
Thursday, April 13, to celebrate his having creditably passed 
the regular examination prescribed for Servian students. All 
came, and the banquet proceeded, Alexander occupying the 
place of toast-master at the head of the table. Meantime,, 
police and soldiers occupied the houses of his distinguished 
guests and all the public buildings. A sufficient force was at: 
the same time gathered about the palace in which the ban-. 
queters were making merry. After the third course, when the 
champagne had circulated freely, an aide-de-camp whispered to. 
the king that all was ready. Thereupon Alexander, with great. 
self-possession, rose and said: ‘Gentlemen, for four years you 
have administered in my name the kingly power. I thank you: 
heartily for the trouble you have taken. Now, however, I feel. 
able to administer the kingly power myself, and I will exercise: 
it from this moment. I beg you therefore at once to hand me: 
your resignations in writing.’ Needless to say the regents and 
the ministers were taken by surprise. They refused to comply: 
with the young king’s demand. He said nothing, but left the 
room. Presently the aide-de-camp returned, and called upon 
the regents thrice in the king’s name to resign. Upon their: 
refusing they were conveyed away under guard to another 
palace to spend the night. M. Dokitch was appointed Pre- 
mier, a new cabinet of Radicals was organized, and writs. 
were issued for a new election.” 4 


The spirited action of the young king made him popular 
both with the army and the people. The new prime minis- 
ter gave solemn assurance that neither Russia nor Austria, 


1 Baltimore Sun, April 28, 1893. 
24 


370 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


King Milan nor Queen Natalie, had inspired the movement ; 
only the king and himself, he affirmed, were in the secret. 

Another surprise followed this event. King Milan and 
Queen Natalie were reconciled, and are living, to all 
appearance happily, in a castle in their son’s dominions ; 
although the sham divorce occasions legal embarrassment, 
it being difficult to undo what it appears had never been 
done. King Milan asserts that he has never ceased to 
be in love with his wife. Queen Natalie professes her- 
self willing to believe him. ‘There are people who have 
hinted that King Milan, having squandered his resources 
at Monte Carlo, has found it prudent to be received back 
into his wife’s favor, and to share her fortune. 


The Kingdom of Roumania, once the Turkish provinces 
of Moldavia and Wallachia, is peopled by the descendants 
of Roman military colonists and of the ancient Dacians. 
Its religion is that of the Greek Church; its language is a 
corrupt Latin. To the north it borders upon Austrian 
Poland ; on the east it is separated by the River Pruth 
from Bessarabia (a province given to it after the Crimean 
War, but restored to Russia by the Berlin Congress) ; on 
the west it borders on the Slavonic dependencies of the 
kingdom of Hungary; while the Danube is its southern 
boundary, and divides it from Bulgaria. 

Under the earlier Mohammedan sultans its Christian 
inhabitants were granted the free exercise of their faith, and 
the appointment of their own prince or hospodar ; but after 
Moldavia had been surrendered to Austria, and reconquered 
by the Turks in 1737, the Porte deprived its inhabitants of 
the privilege of appointing their own sovereign, and every 
seven years sold the dignity of wazwode (as the ruler was 
then styled) to the highest bidder among the Greek resi- 
dents of Constantinople. The rule of these Fanariots, as 
they were called, from the Fanar, the Greek aristocratic 
quarter in Constantinople, was utterly distasteful to their 
subjects, and in 1821 the Turkish government tried ap- 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. 3 fk 


pointing doyards, or native noblemen, with no better suc- 
cess. ‘* Hospodar”’ was the title of these rulers in Moldavia, 
while ‘‘ caimacan”’ (meaning “ deputy of the grand vizier’’) 
was the name of the governor of Wallachia, the sister 
State. 

In 1828, after the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, Russia 
assumed a protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia; but 
though one of the Russian governors displayed both energy 
and integrity, the rule of the Porte was preferred by the 
people to that of St. Petersburg. 

The aversion of the Roumans, as the Moldo-Wallachians 
call themselves, to the Russians is two-fold. The Roumans 
are not Slavs, but consider themselves Romans; and the 
proudest of their ancestors in the palmiest days of the 
Roman Empire could not have been more disdainful of 
the barbarians of Scythia. They are of the Greek Church, 
it is true, but of the Greek Church of Byzantine origin; 
not that offshoot of it which, under the headship of the 
czar, is the religion of Russia. 

There is in Paris, in the Rue Neuve de Berry, a beautiful 
little Russian church, erected shortly before the revolution 
of 1848. ‘“ What!” cries a Moldo-Wallachian preacher, 
“ Roumans to frequent a Russian place of worship? Is it 
then forgotten that they can never enter its walls? — that 
Wallachians who die in Paris declare that the presence of a 
Russian priest would be an insult at their tomb? ... Our 
hatred is perpetuated by the difference of language. The 
Russian tongue is Slavonic ; ours is Latin.” 

A Moldavian writer says: ‘There is less sympathy be- 
tween the Rouman and the Slav than between the Rouman 
and the Ottoman. Any attempt to assimilate the Rou- 
mans, the Turks, the Slavonians, and the Greeks would be 
fruitless,”’ + 

Here, then, we are met full face with one of the difficulties 
of the Eastern Question. 


1 Blackwood’s Magazine, 1858; Williamson’s Wallachia and Mol- 
davia. 


872 RUSSIA AND TURKEV IN THE ATK CEN 


From 1721 to 1828, a little more than a century, Walla- 
chia passed through the hands of no less than forty gover- 
nors. It was occupied by the Russians from 1770 to 
1774, by Austria from 1789 to 1792,.and again by the 
Russians from 1806 to 1812. ‘The evils naturally arising 
from such a state of things weighed so heavily on the 
Moldo-Wallachians that they implored the court of Russia 
in 1792 to interfere in their behalf. This led to the Rus- 
sian protectorate and the rule of the boyards. 

We are in the habit of associating the word “ boyard ”’ with 
aristocratic ancestry and large landed estates. This, as 
concerned the Roumanian boyards, is entirely a mistake. 
Boyards in Moldo-Wallachia were made for life. They 
were of two classes, the great and the little boyards. The 
privileges of boyards were immense. They paid no taxes, 
were under no obligation to perform military service, and 
no punishment could be inflicted on them that was de- 
grading. In 1858 there were in Wallachia three thousand 
boyards ; in Moldavia six thousand. Not more than three 
hundred of these were of ancient families; the rest had 
been promoted from the middle class. Indeed, men of 
ancient lineage who respected their traditions declined to 
share a rank to which the reigning ruler of Moldavia had in 
that year (1858) promoted all his footmen. 

For twenty years —that is, from 1834 to 1854 — both 
Wallachia and Moldavia were engaged in perpetual disputes 
with their rulers. Alternately they appealed to the czar or 
to the sultan. Sometimes they rose and drove their princes 
into exile. Among the worst of their governors was Michael 
Stourza of Moldavia, and Prince Stirbey of Wallachia. The 
latter was still reigning when the Crimean War broke out, 
and Austria sent into the principalities an army of occupa- 
tion. She had declined to take any active part in the great 
war ; but agreed to keep Moldavia and Wallachia from giv- 
ing assistance to either side. Prince Stirbey, who up to that 
time had been almost a Russian vassal, attached himself at 
once to Austria, as the power in the ascendant in the 
principalities. 


SERVIA AND ROUMANTA. 373 


All accounts speak indignantly of the cruelties, the in- 
solence, and the misdoings of the Austrian soldiers. They 
succeeded in rousing in the provinces bitter hatred to their 
country, —a hatred greater than the popular hatred to Rus- 
sia, far greater than the animosity ever manifested by the 
Wallachians to the Turks, in spite of the misdoings of Turk- 
ish officials. 

When the Crimean War ended, the Moldo-Wallachians 
had hopes that the Paris Conference would afford them 
some relief, and began to talk of union under a foreign. 
prince as their only hope of order, independence, and 
prosperity. But the diplomatists at Parise did not seem 
inclined to consult their wishes. In Wallachia Alexander 
Ghica was restored to a throne he had forfeited by mis- 
government ; and in Moldavia two hospodars succeeded his 
brother, Gregory Ghica; until, in 1858, John Alexander 
Couza was called to the hospodarial throne. His father 
had been a wealthy Moldavian, who sent his son to Paris, 
where his irregularities of conduct were so outrageous that 
he was ordered home, and put into the Moldavian militia, 
where he again got into trouble for every kind of miscon- 
duct. He next went into politics, and took part in an 
abortive Moldavian revolution. For this he was arrested, 
and sent to Galatz to be delivered over to the Turkish 
authorities. He escaped, and was smuggled on board a 
grain vessel by the British consul. He came back not long 
after, when Gregory Ghica succeeded Michael Stourza. 
His private life, though disreputable in the extreme, did 
not prevent the Hospodar Vogorides, his boon companion, 
from appointing him to a judgeship, and making him his 
aide-de-camp. But Couza, who had resolved to bid for 
popularity, turned against his patron, and commenced a new 
public career as a disinterested patriot, — above all, the friend 
of the peasantry. In 1858 the liberal leaders at Jassy (the 
Moldavian capital), being at a loss for a candidate to pro- 
pose for hospodar, were coerced into selecting Couza. When 
apprised that their choice had fallen upon him, he was play- 
ing billiards in a cafe. 


374 RUSSIA AND TURKEYIN THE XIX? 2 CENTURY, 


““On learning what had come to pass he laughed aloud, ob- 
serving: ‘Very well. JI accept. Perhaps after all I may make 
as good a prince as any of you.’ Next day he was elected hos- 
podar of Moldavia by a large parliamentary majority ; and three 
weeks later the Wallachian chamber selected him to the like of- 
fice in Bucharest, thus seizing the opportunity of securing the 
long yearned-for blessing of the union of the principalities.” 1 


Prince Couza reigned eight years. He carried out his 
liberal intentions toward the peasanty, — gave them com- 
plete emancipation from serfdom, security in their landed 
possessions, and universal suffrage. 


“The actualities of Couza’s reign,” says Mr. Kingston, ‘were, 
after all, of the highest importance to his native country... . 
The opportunity was presented to this dissolute but astute 
Moldavian of amalgamating the two provinces, already one in 
speech, religion, customs, and history; and he fulfilled this part 
of his self-assigned mission admirably, achieving a veritable tri- 
umph of diplomacy in inducing the Porte to confirm his nomi- 
nation as hospodar of the united provinces. By this brilliant 
and unexpected feat he imparted the impulse to his country’s 
destinies which carried Roumania irresistibly forward until she 
achieved absolute independence and the rank of a kingdom. 
His reforms, however, in favor of the peasantry roused against 
him the enmity of the wealthier classes, who felt that their only 
chance of establishing a stable government was to place their 
country under the sovereignty of a foreign prince, if one could be 
found suited to the position.” 


On the night of Feb. 13, 1866, Prince Couza was roused 
from his sleep by officers of the army, who laid an act of 
abdication before him, and ordered him to sign it. After 
some resistance he did so, and was forthwith transported to 
the frontier. He left twelve ducats in bullion in the treasury ; 
the troops were unpaid, although taxes had been collected for 
that especial purpose; and the very horses of the cavalry 
were so starved for want of fodder that two regiments, per- 
sonally attached to him, were unable to pursue the party 
who were carrying him over the frontier into Hungary. 


1 Monarchs I Have Met, W. Beatty-Kingston. 


KING CHAKLES OF ROUMAWNIA. 


) LIBRARY 
US RSITY OF ILLINOIS 


URDANA 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. 375 


A provisional government was at once appointed, consist- 
ing of three of the principal conspirators. It was quietly 
accepted by all parties ; and agents were despatched to the 
different courts of Europe to pick out a future sovereign. 
The leading men in Roumania had pledged themselves in 
writing to choose no Roumanian by birth, well knowing that 
none of their fellow-countrymen would be acceptable alike 
to Russia, Austria, and Turkey, and dreading local influence 
and local jealousies. 

Prince Jerome Napoleon offered himself; but the Czar 
Alexander would not consent to his selection. ‘Then the 
Count of Flanders, brother and heir presumptive of the 
king of the Belgians, declined the proposed honor. 


‘One day, during an audience granted by Napoleon III. to 
José Bratiano, the emperor, after passing in review the names of 
various august personages, eligible from the Roumanian point 
of view, and raising insuperable objections to each, observed: 
‘There is young Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, by the way, — 
why do you not try for him? I have heard him very well spoken 
of; besides, as you may know, he is a sort of connection of 
mine. If you should choose him, your choice would be agree- 
able tome!’ On leaving the Tuileries after further conversa- 
tion on the subject, Bratiano communicated the imperial hint to 
the triumvirate at Bucharest, by whom he was promptly em- 
powered to open negotiations with Anthony of Hohenzollern, — 
the young prince’s father, — and with the court of Prussia.” } 


Prince Charles was a second son, his elder brother being 
that Prince Leopold, whose selection for the vacant throne 
of Spain brought on the Franco-Prussian War. ‘The tie of 
relationship alluded to by the Emperor Napoleon was the 
marriage of a Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen with one 
of the nieces of the Empress Josephine. 

Prince Charles, at the time when the princedom of 
Roumania was offered him, was a captain of dragoons in 
the Prussian army, “ highly esteemed in his regiment as an 
officer of conspicuous merit, devoted to duty, and a shin- 


1 Mr. Kingston. 


376 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIX1H CENTURY. 


ing example of good conduct in professional and private 
life alike. Roumania’s good luck was decidedly in the 
ascendant when such a prince consented to take charge of 
her affairs. ‘To him she owes the regeneration of her man- 
hood and the amelioration of her morals, her national inde- 
pendence, the increase of her material prosperity, and the 
establishment, on a solid basis of victory, of her military 
reputation. When he took her in hand, she was, as a State, 
of ‘no account’ in the great European problems awaiting 
solution. Her army was worthless; her civil and judicial 
administration were rotten; bribery and corruption were 
rampant in every department of the State’s service. A more 
hospitable, generous, and kindly people than the Rouma- 
nians could not have been found within the length and 
breadth of Europe, nor one less industrious, thrifty, truth- 
loving, and trustworthy.’’? 

Shortly before the Seven Weeks’ War broke out between 
Prussia and Austria, Prince Charles set out in disguise for 
his new dominions. At the frontier he was met by M. 
Bratiano, the leader of the liberal party, who has ever since 
been his prime minister. He made his public entrance 
into Bucharest May 10, 1866; and since then few monarchs 
have accomplished more for their people, or enjoyed a 
larger measure of well-merited confidence and popularity. 
The only distrust of him that has been ever manifested was 
in 1870, when the sympathies of Roumania were all for 
France in the Franco-Prussian war, and it was feared he 
might wish to take some part in it, being a Hohenzollern. 

Prince Charles had been hospodar of Roumania three 
years and a half, when he sought and obtained the hand of 
one of the most highly gifted and accomplished ladies in 
Europe, whose virtues and talents have lent lustre to his 
throne. She was one of three daughters of Prince Herman 
of Wied, a tiny mediatized principality on the edge of the 
Black Forest. Prince Herman had written a book on 
metaphysics, and spent his time chiefly at the German 


1 Mr. Kingston. 


pe 


QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ROUMANIA. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
—_-UREANA 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. B77 


universities. His oldest son was with his regiment at 
Berlin, and his wife (a princess of Nassau) and his three 
daughters lived in the ancestral castle. Elizabeth, the eldest, 
devoted herself to study; reading poetry and philosophy, 
and rambling about .the forest attended by two immense 
St. Bernard dogs. She grew greatly interested in folk-lore 
and in the habits of the peasantry. When she was eighteen 
her mother sent her to Berlin to spend a winter with good 
Queen Augusta. There she first met Prince Charles of 
Hohenzollern. When she was twenty-one she passed a year 
in Russia, but the climate did not suit her delicate health, 
and her chief pleasure was in a friendship she formed with 
Clara Schumann, sister of the composer. 

She went afterward to Italy, and on her way paid a brief 
visit to a cousin, where she met Count von Moltke, who 
said in her presence of Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, 
«He is a young man who will take his place in life and be 
much spoken of.” | 

Princess Elizabeth had made up her mind never to marry, 
but to devote her life to literature and philanthropy, when 
Prince Charles of Roumania again appeared, believing that 
in the young girl who had from the first attracted him, he 
should find a true helpmate in his difficult position. 

The courtship was brief, but it was avery happy one. 
When her friends congratulated her on ascending a throne 
she said, “ No throne would have suited me but that 
of Roumania, because in Roumania there will be plenty 
toido.7 

She was married November 18, 1869, and ten days later 
she and her husband reached Bucharest, their capital. A 
traveller before that day spoke of Bucharest as “a rural 
city, belted with pleasant meadows, and nestling in a net- 
work of vines and gardens.” With every demonstration of 
delight its motley population of Roumans, foreigners, 
Gypsies, and Jews, received their young prince and his 
bride. Elizabeth was lost in delight over the beautiful 
scene. 


378 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


At once she set herself to fulfil her duties, learning to 
take pleasure even in ceremonial. She encouraged education 
in every way, taking an especial interest in school-books 
and children’s books, of which, up to her time there were 
none in the Roumanian language. She collected young 
Roumanian girls, daughters of noblemen, around her, and 
the first thing she taught them was zzdustry. She and they 
wore always the Roumanian costume, and while she set 
them their tasks of needle-work, like a chatelaine of old, she 
read aloud to them and tried to inspire them with a taste 
for poetry, music, and general literature. 

In those early happy days of her married life little Marie, 
her only child, was born. But little Marie died of diphtheria 
when she was four years old. ‘Only in work, in the 
great abundance of work, lies consolation,” the sorrowing 
mother said in her affliction. 

In 1876 the struggle between Russia and Turkey began 
by the occupation of Roumania by a Russian army. In 
1877 Prince Charles was fighting as the ally of Russia. If 
occasionally Roumanians had been found who thought that 
their prince retained rather too much of the steady-going 
painstaking Prussian officer, they now learned how much 
those qualities contributed to their national importance. 
When they called him from his military service in Germany 
the Roumanian army was a mob of undisciplined men. In 
the war of 1877 the Roumanians proved themselves the best 
contingent in the Russian army. It was to the forty-six 
thousand men of the Roumanian reinforcement that the 
Russians owed their ability to retreat in good order after 
their first repulse at Plevna. Skobeleff complained, as we 
have seen, of their plundering propensities, but they fought 
admirably and appear to have been well officered. 

Meantime in Bucharest the Princess Elizabeth came to 
be called by Russian and Roumanian soldiers “ the mother 
of the wounded.” ‘Wearing the simple garb of the Red 
Cross sisterhood she was to be found early and late in 
the hospitals. Whenever,’ says Mr. Kingston, “in my 


PRINCE FERDINAND OF ROUMANTIA. 


Fh ae ¥ _ = 
® = ‘ 
a > 
aw 7 Pak 
iy 


LIBRARY 
~ UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URDANA 


SERVIA AND ROUMANIA. 379 


flying visits to Bucharest I found time to look up some 
friend or acquaintance lying fever-stricken or wounded in 
the ward of a hospital I was sure to encounter by some 
poor fellow’s bedside the merciful princess.” 

When the war was over Roumania was declared wholly in- 
dependent of Turkey ; and on October 28, 1878, the prince 
and his victorious army marched in triumph into Bucharest, 
received with showers of flowers, and singing a Battle 
Hymn composed for the occasion by Princess Elizabeth. 

But a great disappointment was in store for the nation 
and its sovereign. ‘Their reward for all that they had done 
and suffered was that the Berlin Conference took from them 
Bessarabia, giving them instead the swampy and malarious 
Dobrudscha. ‘“ Bessarabia had given to Roumanians the 
command of the mouths of the Danube; by losing it they 
impaired their chance for becoming a strong and prosperous 
nation.” 

Most writers of the period bitterly comment on the in- 
gratitude and bad faith of the Emperor Alexander II., in 
consenting thus to despoil his own ally, but do not remem- 
ber (perhaps did not understand) how terribly his own 
prestige was impaired among his people by the proceed- 
ings of the Congress, so that he dared not refuse any addi- 
tions to Russian territory that the Powers were willing to 
offer him. Nor was he at Berlin during the Congress, 
being detained by the illness of the empress at Gatschina. 

The international position of Roumania was confirmed 
and secured to her, and it was intimated to Prince Charles 
that Europe would gladly see him made a king. 

He was elected to that dignity by a unanimous vote in 
both chambers March 26, 1881, and crowned king of the 
kingdom of Roumania May 22 of the same year. ‘The 
coronation day,’ says Mr. Kingston, “brought him a 
splendid reward for his long and steadfast devotion to the 
best interests of his adopted country.” 

The crown was made from the steel of a Turkish gun, 
taken by the Roumanian troops when they wrested a 


380 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


seemingly impregnable redoubt from the veterans of 
Osman Pasha. 

Not long since a great sorrow fell once more on Queen 
Elizabeth, better known to many of us perhaps as Carmen 
Sylva; and her health, long impaired by excitement and 
overwork, seems now hopelessly shattered. 

Among the young girls who sat at her feet and listened 
to her voice, and loved her as their inspiration and their 
guide, was a certain Princess Vacaresco. As the royal pair 
of Roumania have had no children since their little daugh- 
ter died, King Charles selected as his heir presumptive a 
son of his brother, Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern. The 
young man resided at the Roumanian court that he might 
become well acquainted with the manners, the customs, and 
the language of his future people. At this court and in the 
society of its queen he met the Princess Vacaresco. ‘They 
became deeply attached to each other. ‘The queen favored 
their love and endeavored to promote their marriage. But 
the constitution of the kingdom of Roumania was against 
the lovers’ hopes and wishes. 

Not only had it been stipulated that no Roumanian should 
be considered an eligible ruler, but so great was the popular 
dread of awakening the jealousies of rival houses that a 
stipulation was added that no prince could bear rule in 
Roumania who married a Roumanian. 

The throne had not been established long enough for an 
heir presumptive to disregard this provision. ‘The lovers 
parted. The Princess Vacaresco withdrew to Paris, and 
after a period of sincere grieving for her loss Prince 
Ferdinand asked the hand of Princess Marie of England, 
granddaughter of Queen Victoria, daughter of H. R. H. 
Prince Aifred, Duke of Edinburgh, and niece to the present 
emperor of Russia. His suit was accepted, and the mar- 
riage took place January 10, 1893, at his father’s family 
castle in Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen on the Danube. King 
Charles was present, but Queen Elizabeth was too ill 
to attend. 


SOM AKIE. 


Veh 


PRINC. 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF LLINOIS - 
—URDANA 


\ 


A DIG ay I 
THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 


WE will end these sketches of Russia and Turkey and 

the kingdoms and the States now lying between 
them, — lands fought over and ravaged, outraged, contended 
for and still in dispute, — with some account of the obscure 
Turkish provinces placed by the Congress of Berlin under 
the protection of Austria, and of two principalities, one of 
which still acknowledges the quasi-suzerainty of the sultan, 
while the other, proud of having never been subdued, is 
entirely enfranchised. 

This tiny principality is Montenegro, a land vine Mr. 
Gladstone says ‘‘ might have risen to world-wide and immor- 
tal fame had there been a Scott to learn and tell the mar- 
vels of its history, or a Byron to spend and be spent on its 
behalf.” ? 

When at the close of the fifteenth century the Turks 
overran the ruins of Stephen Dushan’s Servian Empire, the 
Montenegrin ruler, Ivan Tchernoievitch (ever since in his 
own land a popular hero) sought help from the Venetians. 
It was denied him, and with all his people he retired to the 
rocks and precipices of the Black Mountains, forsaking for 
the cause of faith and freedom the fertile plains that had 
been populated by their race for seven hundred years. 

Prince Ivan built a monastery at Cettinjé, round which 
subsequently grew up the capital of Montenegro; “and,” 


1 Montenegro; a sketch by W. E. Gladstone. Nineteenth 
Century. 


382 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


says Mr. Gladstone, “what is most of all remarkable in the 
whole transaction, he carried with him to the hills a printing- 
press twenty-eight years after the appearance of the first 
printed book in Germany.” 

George, the son of Ivan, had married a Venetian wife, 
and was persuaded by her to go back among her people ; 
but finding soon after that his countrymen were in danger, 
owing to the unworthy conduct of his brother Stephen, who 
had become a renegade, he returned to his mountains, 
restored peace, and in 1516 retired finally to Venice, trans- 
ferring his authority to the metropolitan bishop. 

After this for three hundred and thirty-six years the 
government of Montenegro was carried on “by a long 
series of about twenty prelate princes, who taught in the 
sanctuary, presided over the council, or fought in the front 
of battle. ‘There were among them those who were admi- 
rable statesmen. ‘These were especially of the Nicgush 
family, which came in 1687 to the permanent possession of 
power, — a power so little begirt with the conveniences of 
life, and so weighted with responsibility and care, that it 
was never coveted, and seems never to have been abused.” 

After the accession of Prince Danilo, the first of the 
Nicgush bishop-princes, incessant wars were carried on 
between the Turks and Montenegrins for more than a hun- 
dred and fifty years; in other words, almost to the present 
day. The Montenegrins were alternately aggressors and 
self-defenders. Their raids on Turkey very much re- 
sembled those of the Highland caterans upon the Low- 
lands, — “raids,” says Mr. Gladstone, “that we have 
learned to judge so leniently.” 

Whenever Austria or Russia went to war with Turkey the 
Montenegrins took that opportunity to attack the Turks, 
but they rarely reaped any reward from the Christian Pow- 
ers for their assistance. The Russian government of late 
years, however, has paid a small subsidy to the prince of 
Montenegro. 

By the Congress of Vienna the only seaport possessed by 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 383 


the Montenegrins (that of Cattaro) was made over to the 
Austrians. Until recently the principality was no larger 
than one of the smallest dukedoms of Germany, but the 
Congress of Berlin added to its territory, and gave it in 
addition to Cattaro two seaports, Antivari and Dulcigno. 
It now contains seventeen hundred and ten square miles of 
territory, and has & population of about a quarter of a 
million, — one-fifth as much, let us say, as the city of 
Chicago. ‘The surface of the country is a series of ele- 
vated ridges rising here and there into high mountains 
covered with forests. The population is entirely agricul- 
tural, and every man when he engages in field labor adheres 
to ancient custom and keeps his weapons by his side. The 
population was increased in 1865 and in 1875 by Christians 
flying from Turkish oppression in Bosnia and Herzegovina ; 
but when peace was restored by the Berlin Congress these 
immigrants, for the most part, returned to their own fertile 
plains. 

In 1782 Peter the Saint was prince or vladika of Mon- 
tenegro. General Marmont (Duc de Raguse) offered him 
great inducements to join the French and Turks against the 
Austrians, but Peter firmly refused to place his people on 
the side of their hereditary enemy. Marmont, notwith- 
standing his disappointment, wrote thus: ‘This vladika is 
a splendid man, now about fifty, of remarkable intelligence 
and great dignity of manner. His legal authority over 
his countrymen may not be great, but his influence is 
unbounded.” 

“Down to, and perhaps after the time of this prince,” 
says Mr. Gladstone, “the government of Montenegro was 
carried on like government in Greece in the Homeric age. 
The sovereign was priest, judge, and general, and was like- 
wise the head of the General Assembly of the people, in 
which were taken the decisions which were to bind the 
nation as laws.” 

Prince Peter died in 1830 and was succeeded by his 
nephew Peter, surnamed the Poet, who was seventeen when 


384 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


called to the throne, and who three years later received at 
St. Petersburg episcopal consecration. He was nearly six 
feet eight inches in height and finely proportioned. 

He proved himself a successful warrior and a somewhat 
stern legislator, being resolved, like James I. of Scotland, to 
put down among his subjects both brigandage and the 
vendetta. 

Hero, statesman, and poet, he died in 1851. His recog- 
nized heir was his nephew Danilo. The reason Montene- 
grin princes were succeeded, not by sons, but by nephews, 
was that their sacerdotal character enjoined celibacy. Inthe 
orthodox Greek Church, priests #ws¢ marry ; bishops may 
not. Prince Danilo had become greatly attached to a lady 
in Trieste, and thence arose a difficulty. Either he must 
renounce his love, or break with the traditions of his race 
and refuse to be a bishop. The Council of his people whom 
he consulted advised him to marry, and to become, not 
their bishop, but their hospodar. With their consent he 
transferred his allegiance (what little of it was left) from 
Turkey to Russia, and sought investiture in his new dignity 
from the Emperor Nicholas. 

He lived a happy married life for nine years, but in 1860 
he was shot by an assassin, from some motive of private 
revenge, while standing on the quay at Cattaro. During 
the Crimean War he had declined to take any part in the 
struggle, much to the indignation of his subjects, who wished 
to help the Russians; but in 1858, after the war ended, 
Mirko his brother attacked the Turks and gained a signal 
victory. ‘This fight was in consequence of an attempt of 
the Congress of Paris to force Montenegro (in return for 
the restitution of Cattaro) to acknowledge the suzerainty of 
the sultan. Prince Danilo refused. Prince Mirko gained 
his victory, and chiefly by the good offices of the Emperor 
Napoleon III. the Powers acknowledged the complete 
independence of the gallant little principality. 

Prince Danilo left no sons. His widow and his daughter 
retired to Venice, a city which to Montenegrins of position 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 385 


has for generations been a gate leading from their mountain 
stronghold into civilized life. There the princess died not 
long since, much embarrassed by debt. Her habits were 
lavish and her resources very small. Indeed she could 
receive little aid from Montenegro. ‘The whole revenue of 
the principality amounts only to two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. 

Her husband was succeeded by his nephew, Prince Nikita, 
or Nicholas, son of Prince Mirko. According to a Mon- 
tenegrin writer, Prince Nikita entered on his reign with two 
fixed ideas of duty: he resolved to carry on the work of 
civilization, and to assist in the liberation of other Slavonic 
peoples. 

It would be of little interest to relate the varying fortunes 
of the guerilla warfare carried on with the Turks from July 
to October, 1876, when the Bosnians, Herzegovinians and 
Servians made peace, but their allies the Montenegrins 
refused to do so till they could treat as victors with the 
national enemy. 

Prince Nikita is now (in 1893) fifty-two years old. He 
received his education in Paris, at the Lycée Louis le Grand, 
some years before King Milan of Servia was sent to the 
same institution. 

“Napoleon III. took a great interest in him, invited 
him often to Compiégne, gave him pocket-money and 
presents, and on his coming to the throne gratified him 
with fifty thousand dollars.” ? 

In his youth this prince was strikingly handsome ; and he: 
remains so still, although he has grown gray and portly. 
He is a poet as well as a soldier, and has composed some: 
ballads which are popular wherever the language in which 
they are written is spoken. He is himself an accomplished: 
linguist, speaking French, Italian, Russian, and Turkish 
with perfect fluency, and German fairly well. He is. 
regarded by European diplomacy as the firm ally, almost 
the vassal of the emperor of Russia, and between them is. 


1 Temple Bar. 
25 


386 RUSSIA AND TURKEY JN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


the bond dearest to the heart of the Czar Alexander, — the 
prince and people of Montenegro are of the orthodox 
Greek Church, the branch that is the State Church of Holy 
Russia. 

Prince Nikita married when seventeen the beautiful and 
gracious Milena, daughter of a Slavonian nobleman, by 
whom he has a large family. One of his daughters, the 
Princess Zorka (or Aurora) has been married to Peter 
Karageorgevitch, the pretender of the dynasty of Kara 
George to the Servian throne. ‘This prince, who is a spend- 
thrift and a vulgarian, lives at Cettinjé, and from time to 
time gives his father-in-law considerable trouble. 

The Montenegrins all wear their national costume; all 
have the air of soldiers. Their dress is Oriental, —a sky- 
blue jacket, a scarlet sash, and spurred boots. ‘Their prince 
throws over this a white mantle or furred caftan ; and thus 
attired, with a jewelled sword at his side, he gives audience, 
sitting under a tree (like Saint Louis under the oak at Vin- 
cennes), two or three times a week to all who have anything 
to ask of him; and he administers justice off-hand. 

Cettinjé is a town of about two thousand inhabitants. It 
is built aloft on a high mountain, the path up which from 
the seacoast is so steep that every article of furniture brought 
from abroad must be carried up on the backs of men or 
women. 

The palace is like a medizval castle. In it, besides the 
prince, his family and household, a hundred men of his 
body-guard are lodged. ‘There is a large hotel, where mem- 
bers of the diplomatic corps reside together, or at least dine 
together and spend their evenings. 

Prince Nikita is still constantly engaged in cultivating his 
subjects; but one idea of our fim du siecle has made no 
entrance as yet into Montenegro, — its martial men still look 
upon women as the Indian brave looks upon the squaw. 
The women accept the “dynastic tyranny of larger bones 
and stronger sinews”’ without a murmur. 

An adventure in Montenegro told by Laurence Oliphant 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 387 


seems to make the primitive simplicity that reigned there 
twenty years since so plain to me that I venture here to 
repeat it, especially as I think Mr. Oliphant’s book, “ Scenes 
from a Life of Adventure, or Moss froma Rolling Stone,” 
is far less known than it deserves to be. 

Mr. Oliphant had arrived in Montenegro in 1860, imme- 
diately after the marriage of Prince Nikita. He had passed 
through Hungary and crossed the Danube at Belgrade, 
“reaching it,’”” he says, ‘on the day before Prince Milosch’s 
death, and witnessing the very singular funeral of that 
remarkably able and very wicked old man.” 


“ Thence I rolled on through Bosnia and Herzegovina, wilder 
and more turbulent in those days than they are now, abounding 
in brigand bands, enchanting scenery, and fleas, and in a 
chronic state of guerilla warfare with the Turks, which invested 
travelling through that country with the pleasing charm of per- 
petual risk to life and limb.” ; 


By way of Cattaro he reached Cettinjé. 


“This little town did not in 1860 contain any hotel, properly 
so-called. The rare stranger who visited it was accommodated 
in a sort of lodging-house, in which there were one or two spare 
bedrooms; or if they were not actually spare their occupants 
turned out, I suppose for a consideration, on the arrival of a 
guest. The chamber assigned to me had apparently been thus 
vacated. Its former occupant had evidently been a man of 
modest requirements, for the whole furniture consisted of a bed, 
a huge chest, and achair. I much wondered at the absence of 
a table, and at the presence of the chest; but the latter was 
better than nothing, and when a boiled chicken was brought to 
me as my evening repast, I spread one of my own towels upon 
it, in the absence of a table-cloth, and squatting uncomfortably 
upon the solitary chair proceeded to make the best of existing 
conditions. I was in the act of dissecting an extremely tough 
wing, when the door suddenly opened, and a stalwart Montene- 
grin, magnificent in his national costume, walked in. He 
addressed me with great politeness in his native tongue, —at 
least I gathered from his manner that he was polite, for I could 
not understand a word of what he said. As he was evidently a 


388 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


man of some position, — in other words, as he seemed to be a 
gentleman of Montenegro, —I rose, and bowed with much cere- 
mony, addressing him fluently in the English language; upon 
which he drew an immense key from his pocket and pointed to 
the lock of the chest, thus giving me to understand that he 
wished to open it. In order for him to accomplish this, it was 
necessary for me to remove my dinner, an operation which was 
speedily performed. As he seemed a frank and engaging sort 
of person, without any secrets, and as I was possessed with 
some natural curiosity, I looked over him as he opened the chest, 
to see what was in it. To my astonishment it was full to the 
brim with bags of money. Not only this, but my strange visitor 
opened one of them and poured out a handful of gold. They 
were evidently all full of gold. When he had counted out what 
he wanted (apparently it was over one hundred pounds) he tied 
up the bag again, replaced it, locked up the chest, helped me, 
with many Slavonic expressions which I have no doubt were 
apologies, to lay my cloth again and spread my banquet, and 
with a final polite salutation vanished, leaving me alone, and in 
perfect confidence, with the untold treasure he had thus revealed 
to me. There was something almost uncanny in dining and 
sleeping alone with so much money. At night the chest seemed 
to assume gigantic proportions, and I felt as if I had been put 
into a haunted room. The absolute confidence placed in me, an 
entire stranger, — for I had not been in the place two hours and 
had not yet presented my letter of introduction to the prince, — 
appalled me, and I went to sleep vainly trying to unravel a mys- 
tery so very unlike any I had expected to find in the barren 
wilds of Montenegro. It was not solved until next day, when, 
dining with the prince, I met my visitor of the previous evening. 
I then acquired the information, through a Russian gentleman 
who spoke French, that the chest upon which I had dined con- 
tained the entire finances of the principality, and that the Mon- 
tenegrin who had unlocked it, and had vacated his chamber on 
my behalf, was the chancellor of the exchequer!” 


Herzegovina and Bosnia are countries that the ordinarily 
well-educated man or woman thinks it no shame to know 
nothing about. Up to the regulation of east European 
affairs by the Congress of Berlin in 1878, these provinces of 
Turkey were the western frontier of Mohammedan dominion, 
dividing it from the borders of so-called Christian civiliza- 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 389 


tion; but they were at the same time the most backward of 
all the provinces of the Porte in enlightenment. They lay 
west and southwest of Servia, interposing a savage popula- 
tion between the strip of Dalmatian territory that skirts the 
Adriatic, and the comparatively more civilized communities 
that dwell along the Danube. The land is rich in minerals 
of every kind. The soil of Bosnia is said to cover enor- 
mous coal-fields. The scenery is beautiful, game is abun- 
dant, and the valleys are fertile; but great darkness for 
centuries settled down upon their people, and in darkness 
no man is disposed to be active either in body or thought. 
Up to 1875 there were no roads throughout the country, 
except fragments of those highways made by the Romans 
when the country formed part of the province of Meesia, 
and lay within easy distance of Byzantium, an imperial 
city. 

When conquered by the Turks in 1485, most of the 
nobles of Bosnia preserved and indeed increased their 
hereditary privileges by turning Moslems; but the rural 
population, especially in Herzegovina, remained true to 
their Christian creed ; while national feeling was kept up 
by the village system, common to all people of Slavonic 
race. 

In Bosnia the renegade nobility became the oppressors 
of their people, but Herzegovina retained for a long while 
some of its popular rights. But in 1850 the Begs of Bosnia 
(the renegade nobles) became so insubordinate that the 
sultan sent Omar Pasha with an army into their land to 
put an end to their government. 

In 1858 the celebrated Hatt-i-Humayoun, extorted from 
the sultan by the Powers after the Crimean War, raised the 
hopes of Christians throughout the Turkish Empire. It 
guaranteed them civil rights and religious freedom ; but, as 
we know already, Turkish statesmen may put forth promises 
to “Christian dogs and unbelievers”? upon paper, only to 
find that pashas and good Mussulmans are unwilling to 
perform them. 


390 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


In Herzegovina, in 1875, Christians largely outnumbered 
the Mohammedans ; in Bosnia they were in a proportion of 
two to one. Both provinces contained many Roman Cath- 
olics, whose sympathies were Austrian, but the majority of 
the Christians were what some call Pravo-Slavs,— that is, 
Christians of the Russian Greek Church ; and one of their 
most bitter complaints against the Turkish government was 
that it set over them Greek bishops from Constantinople, 
who paid for their appointments. 

In Herzegovina the harvest of 1874 was a bad one, and 
the peasantry foresaw a hard winter before them. Abdul 
Aziz was eager for an increase of revenue. ‘To defray the 
expenses of his European tour, and his extravagant build- 
ing projects, he had raised a foreign loan. His treasury 
was empty, and he could not escape the obligation to pay 
dividends to the foreign bondholders. ‘The farmers of the 
taxes were pressed by the government to raise more money. 
In their turn they pressed hard upon the tax-gatherers, who 
pressed more heavily than ever on the unfortunate people. 

The tax-collectors had always required the agriculturists 
to keep their crops standing until it suited their convenience 
to come and levy the tithe due to the sultan; and they 
invariably estimated the crop, however damaged, to be 
worth the highest market prices in Constantinople. But in 
one district the tax-gatherer did not make his appearance 
until January, 1875, by which time hunger had compelled 
the peasants to sell or to eat some part of their crops. 
The tax-gatherer estimated the tax at an enormous sum ; 
the people resisted his demands ; they were robbed, beaten 
and imprisoned, and their head men were threatened with 
arrest if-they complained. Some fled to the mountains of 
Montenegro, sure of finding shelter among people of the 
same faith and the same race. The insurrection spread 
to other portions of the province. About the same time 
the emperor of Austria, on whom Roman Catholic Chris- 
tians, when oppressed by the Porte, looked as their pro- 
tector, chanced to visit his province of Dalmatia. The 


YHE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 391 


Herzegovina peasantry at once began to hope that he had 
come to aid them.- Soon every part of Herzegovina was 
aflame with insurrection.! 

The governor of Bosnia went over into Herzegovina, 
and made some attempts to settle the dispute by pacific 
intervention; but in vain. The insurrection spread into 
his pashalik. ‘Thousands of unhappy fugitives crossed into 
Austrian territory. Six thousand were sheltered in Ragusa, 
and the resources of that little Dalmatian city were strained 
to the utmost to provide for them. ‘Their cry of distress 
reached western Europe, and in England and elsewhere 
societies were formed to send them clothes and money. 
Meantime both Servians and Montenegrins came to their 
aid, and Bulgaria showed symptoms of insurrection, which 
were repressed by massacre. But the Turkish armies had 
good leaders and trained soldiers; the insurgents seem to 
have had no leaders, and were without arms or military 
discipline. ‘Their allies, the Servians, made peace with the 
Turks in 1876. Herzegovina and Bosnia lay at the mercy 
of the sultan. But at that moment the attention of the 
authorities at Constantinople was distracted by a change 
in the order of succession, and an impending war with 
Russia, besides plans and counter-plans for administrative 
reform. ‘The war of 1877 took place, and when the Con- 
gress of Berlin took on itself the settlement of eastern 
Europe, Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under the 
administration of the emperor of Austria, though they still, 
nominally, form part of the sultan’s dominions. Austria 
has placed over them a military governor, and has garrisoned 
the country with fifteen thousand men. 

So few travellers are attracted to these provinces, notwith- 
standing their abundant game and easy access, that very 
little is known about their present condition. It is, how- 
ever, reported that the peasantry are very unwilling to 
submit to military conscription. Under the Turks no 
Christian could be a soldier. A tax was laid upon all male 


1 Cf. London Quarterly Review. 


392 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIX7TH CENTURY. 


Christians, even an infant in arms, as a substitute for mili- 
tary service. 

The chief town of Bosnia is Serajevo (in Turkish, Bosna- 
Serai). The chief towns in Herzegovina are Mostar and 
Trebinje. The population of the two provinces is about 
one and a half million, of whom less than one third are 
Mohammedans who appear to submit quietly to Austrian 
tule. They have, however, forfeited their privileges as the 
dominant race. 


The Bulgarians naturally sympathized with their fellow 
Christians in 1875 and 1876, and we know already how the 
hearts of all men and women in western Europe and 
America were stirred by accounts of the atrocities com- 
mitted by Turkish irregular troops and by Circassian settlers 
in Southern Bulgaria. The war of 1877 was to the Rus- 
sians a Holy War, undertaken on behalf of their fellow- 
Christians. 

When peace was signed, by the Treaty of San Stefano, 
Bulgaria believed herself to have gained her freedom. But 
she was disappointed. ‘The Congress of Berlin divided her 
into two portions. ‘That south of the Balkans, now called 
Eastern Roumelia, remained Turkish, having, however, a 
Christian governor. ‘That north of the Balkans was formed 
into a principality. 

The Bulgars are said to have been a Tartar tribe who 
settled in the southern part of Russia in the fourth century. 
Subsequently they moved southward to the shores of the 
Danube, which they crossed into the present Bulgaria, where 
they planted themselves afresh for the third time. They 
subdued the Slavonic races who at that time inhabited the 
region, and became a powerful people, waging cruel wars 
with the Greek emperors, one of whom after a victory is 
said to have put out the eyes of fifteen thousand Bulgarian 
prisoners in one day. The Emperor Basil drove the Bul- 
gars out of Macedonia and Epirus, and forced them back 
to their own dominions between the Danube and the Bal- 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 393 


kans; and when the Turks poured over the lands that 
acknowledged the Greek emperor, they conquered the 
Bulgarians, who, though Christians, were of a kindred 
race. 

That brilliant writer and army correspondent, Mr. Archi- 
bald Forbes, draws by no means a distressing picture of 
Bulgarians under Turkish rule, up to the time when the 
massacres of 1876 made them visible as an oppressed race 
to the eyes of the western world : — 


‘Taxed they were,” he says, “no doubt heavily and arbi- 
trarily, but they prospered. Annoyed, too, they must frequently 
have been by some Turkish zafézeh (or policeman) and the 
Circassian settlements were from the first a heavy grievance to 
an industrious population. The country, under Turkish rule, 
could hardly be said to be governed. As long as things went 
on quietly, the dominion of the dominant race acknowledged, 
and taxes quietly paid, the Bulgarians were not much molested 
by the Ottomans. They had plenty of churches, they were 
allowed to ring their bells. Their greatest grievance was that 
their bishops were despatched to them from Constantinople, 
and were not in accord with their flocks, even in creed, for the 
Bulgarians inclined to Pravo-Slavism. I do not mean to say 
that all was smooth and pleasant for the Bulgarians, or indeed 
for any of the Christian races of which the population of 
Turkey in Europe is made up; but their lot, from all that I 
have been able to learn, was tolerable enough. I think a 
Devonshire laborer, with his nine shillings a week and a few 
mugs of cider, would cheerfully have put up with the zapfieh, 
exclusion from the management of public affairs, and even with 
debarment from military service, for the sake of the rich acres 
of pasture and barley land, the cattle, and broad acres of the 
rural Bulgarian.” 


But there is no doubt that when Servia was at war with 
Turkey, and Bosnia and Herzegovina were in revolt, the 
Bulgarians were stimulated to plot against their Turkish 
masters. Then came the massacres in Southern Bulgaria, 
the intervention of Russia, and the war. 

At the Congress of Berlin the Powers agreed on Prince 
Alexander of Battenberg as Prince of Bulgaria, and the 


3904. RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIX7# CENTURY. 


sultan gave his assent. It was also agreed that no inter- 
ference with the affairs of Turkey or of the Danubian States 
should be permitted to one Power, unless the others sanc- 
tioned what was done, or co-operated in it. 

Alexander of Battenberg was one of four brothers, the 
others being Prince Henry, Prince Louis, and Prince Francis 
Joseph. ‘Their father was a prince of Hesse, uncle to the 
present Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt. He made a 
morganatic marriage with the daughter of a wazwode, or 
nobleman in Austrian Poland. ‘The lady was made princess 
of Battenberg, and her sons, by courtesy, had the title of 
prince. ‘The emperor of Germany and his great chancellor 
were much opposed to the pretensions of this left-handed 
branch of the House of Hesse. Not so Queen Victoria ; 
and the empress of Russia, who had been born a princess 
of Hesse-Darmstadt, was disposed to favor her young con- 
nection, Prince Alexander, and in her will left him a con- 
siderable sum. 

The choice of the Congress was not, however, agreeable 
to the Emperor Alexander II., though he acquiesced in it ; 
but Russia thought it hard that, after all the blood and 
treasure she had expended for Bulgaria, her candidate for 
the honor of ruling it— Prince Dondoukoff- Koursakoff — 
was not even considered. However, this prince, who was 
then provisional governor of Bulgaria, said openly that, if 
he was not chosen to govern the country, he was going to 
make the Bulgarians adopt a constitution under which 
nobody else could. Accordingly he drew up for them the 
scheme of an ultra-democratic constitutional government, 
which to a people who did not know how to use political 
privileges, was very embarrassing. It is said, however, that 
the Bulgarians and their ruler got over the difficulty by 
paying the constitution as little attention as possible. 

It is believed that Prince Alexander, whose appointment 
was, as it were, forced upon Russia, displeased the Emperor 
Alexander and his people from the first, by showing too 
little gratitude for what Russia had done for Bulgarians, 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 395 


and by discountenancing the expression of such gratitude 
on the part of his subjects. Others say that as long as 
Alexander II. lived, Alexander of Bulgaria was on good 
terms with the court of Russia (indeed he was one of the 
imperial dinner party at St. Petersburg on the day of the 
explosion at the Winter Palace) ; but undoubtedly when 
Alexander III. came to the throne a positive personal ani- 
mosity soon showed itself on his part to his morganatic 
cousin. 

Prince Alexander was a handsome man, of powerful but 
not ungraceful build; his bearing was military, and his fea- 
tures finely chiselled. His manners, also, were courteous 
and polite. The Bulgarians, by way of showing apprecia- 
tion of their first independent ruler, erected for him in the 
late Turkish Quarter of Sofia, his capital, a palace of a 
somewhat novel kind. It is a rudely constructed, one- 
storied building, “ differing little from other houses in Sofia, 
save in respect to superior cleanliness.” The furniture was 
simple and tasteful, though not princely. The house con- 
tained three sitting-rooms, a reception-room, a study, and 
the prince’s bedroom. At the back of the courtyard were 
two servants’ rooms, an apartment for the Secretary of 
State, and the stables. There were four servants, all of 
them males and Germans, whom the prince had brought 
with him from his own country. There was, besides, the 
hall-porter, and a Montenegrin attendant, — a martial figure 
with a fiercely curled moustache. The prince’s aides-de- 
camp were his old comrades, and a friend of his boyhood 
was his private secretary. 

I have dwelt upon these details because they have some 
bearing on the subsequent history of Prince Alexander. 

Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria; Philippopolis that of 
Eastern Roumelia. By the Treaty of San Stefano these two 
parts of Bulgaria had been united into one autonomous 
State. When this arrangement was set at naught by the 
Berlin Congress all the Bulgarians had been bitterly dis- 
appointed, and on September 18, 1885, a quiet revolution 


396 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH# CENTURY. 


was effected at Philippopolis, by which the inhabitants of 
Eastern Roumelia threw off the Turkish administration oa 
put themselves under the prince of Bulgaria. 

Prince Alexander had not intrigued for this result ; indeed 
it embarrassed him, and complicated an already difficult 
situation. He received the news when on his model farm 
near Varna, and at once set out in a light open carriage to 
see things at Philippopolis for himself. By travelling night 
and day he reached that place in forty-eight hours, having 
made, over rough roads, five hundred miles. He took the 
helm of government at once, and before night great satis- 
faction reigned in the capital of his new dominions. But 
the emperor of Russia was indignant. He was willing to 
protect and patronize the Bulgarians and Roumelians, but 
not their prince. It was not his wish to see a strong State, 
whose public feeling was opposed to Russian interests, built 
up between the Danube and Constantinople. Moreover, 
when the other Powers held him strictly to the observance 
of the provisions of the Berlin Treaty, it was exasperating to 
see those provisions, in six years, set at naught by so puny 
a power as Bulgaria. 

Abdul Hamid, influenced by England, and by his own 
strong desire for peace (so necessary, as he conceived it, 
to foster his plans of reform), acquiesced in the new dispo- 
sition of Eastern Roumelia; but the moment the news 
reached Servia, King Milan laid claim to two districts in 
Bulgaria, which he said were peopled by Slavs, and ought, 
if Bulgaria enlarged her borders, to be annexed to his do- 
minions. At once he declared war on Bulgaria. The 
campaign lasted about a week, and was conducted with 
great ability by Prince Alexander. The Servians were de- 
feated at the battle of Slivnitza, and pursued into their own 
territory. Then Germany, Austria, Russia, and Turkey 
intervened and forced an armistice, Austria threatening to 
take part in the war if the Bulgarians advanced into Servia, 
and Russia to invade Bulgaria. 

Prince Alexander could not do otherwise than bow to the 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 397 


will of the superior Powers; but his own people, proud of 
the success of their little army, saw in their prince a military 
hero, while the Servians resented the conduct of their king. 
Prince Alexander returned to his capitals, Sofia and Philip- 
popolis, outwardly a triumphant conqueror, but inwardly 
perplexed and discouraged. 

We have seen how according to the “ will” of Peter the 
Great it was recommended that Russia should keep polit- 
ical missionaries in foreign capitals, and among Slav popu- 
lations, to create Russian feeling, and promote Russian 
plans. Such an agent was M. Zankoff. His mission in 
Bulgaria was to do all in his power to make the task of 
government so difficult that the reign of Prince Alexander 
might end in confusion and abdication. With Zankoff was. 
associated a General Kaulbars. 

Prince Alexander had been faithful to Russian interests 
at the beginning of his reign, but when he had to choose 
between being a mere vassal of Russia or incurring her 
enmity he took the side of his people. The prince was 
aware of the intrigues carried on against him in his capital, 
but declined to take any extreme measures against the Rus- 
sian conspirators, saying that there must be an opposition in 
every country, and that it was better to let the very small 
sore remain open than by severity to drive the canker in- 
wards. 

To appreciate the situation we must remember that the 
Bulgarians have been for centuries a nation of slaves. They 
are a people, thrifty, industrious, cheerful, and well capable 
of taking care of their own material interests, but so jealous 
of any dictation from foreigners, or interference with their 
affairs, that to this day they will not suffer any one but a 
Bulgarian to make their railroads or even to invest in 
them. 

They had been provided by Prince Dondoukoff-Kour- 
sakoff with a complicated and unworkable constitution, and 
they and their prince were left to struggle with it as best 
they might. For eight years the government went on in a 


398 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


sort of happy-go-lucky fashion, which would have been en- 
tirely satisfactory to all parties had the Bulgarians been let 
alone. But Russian agents were at work and had command 
of Russian money. These missionaries are in no way 
accredited agents of their government. If they succeed 
they will have served their country ; if they fail they will be 
discredited and disavowed. 

The 7é/e that these agents took up in Bulgaria was one of 
advanced liberalism. Already in Servia the radicals had 
been the Russian party. M. Zankoff represented to all dis- 
contented spirits that Prince Alexander and his government 
were continually violating the constitution ; but so great was 
the prince’s popularity after his victories over the Servians 
that it was a common joke in Sofia that the Russian party 
consisted of M. Zankoff, General Kaulbars, and eight others. 
A conspiracy, however, against Prince Alexander was 
secretly matured, and this Russian nucleus was augmented 
by officers disappointed of promotion, and some who had 
personal grievances. Others were members of the Russian 
consulate, and the chief bishop. In the end the number 
of the conspirators amounted to fifty. When all was ready 
the minister of war, who was one of those concerned in the 
plot, sent the prince’s body-guard to a distance and substi- 
tuted a regiment whose officers had been gained over. 

On the night appointed, August 2, 1886, the palace and 
the houses of Alexander’s chief friends were surrounded. 
No officer slept in the palace, which was guarded by a few 
sentries and occupied only by the prince, his brother, and 
their servants. Resistance seeming useless, the prince sur- 
rendered when he found revolvers pointed at his head. 
Some of the officers who threatened his life had dined at 
his table the evening before. He was taken to the office 
of the war minister, who was in the plot, was there treated 
with indignity, and forced to sign his abdication. Subse- 
quently this paper, having been found on the person of one 
of the conspirators, was restored to him. 

Before daylight Prince Alexander was sent under escort 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 399 


to a port on the Black Sea, put on board a yacht and taken 
to Reni in Russia. During his journey he was treated like 
a criminal, and when he reached Russian soil his treatment 
is said to have been still worse. 

Having thus kidnapped the prince, the Russian party in 
Sofia seems hardly to have known what todo next. They 
probably waited for instructions from St. Petersburg. A 
telegram arrived assuring them that the czar took Bulgaria 
under his protection, would secure immediately its reunion 
with Eastern Roumelia, and that a representative of the 
Russian government should be sent to Sofia at once. But 
while the conspirators waited for the arrival of this person- 
age the Bulgarians had time to recover from their astonish- 
ment. The prince’s own body-guard, which had been sent 
to Slivnitza, marched back to Sofia, and recovered the capi- 
tal without firing a shot. The army and the people de- 
clared everywhere for Prince Alexander. There was wild 
confusion throughout Bulgaria and Roumelia, but every- 
where popular feeling was with the prince. A regency 
was appointed, and what might happen next was anxiously 
waited for. 

Meantime Prince Alexander had been liberated and sent 
over the Russian frontier into Austrian Poland. At Lemberg 
the Austrian officials received him with due honor, and 
there he learned that he was still prince of Bulgaria, his 
subjects having appointed a regency to await his return. 

Though physically exhausted by all he had gone through, 
he set out the next day for Bulgaria, and on his arrival in 
that country such a popular reception was given him, as 
probably never was accorded to a prince before. His peo- 
ple flocked as one man to bid him welcome. Never was 
enthusiasm more general or joy more sincere. Yet on his 
arrival at Sofia he made known his purpose of renewing his 
abdication. Perhaps he was hampered by some promise 
made during his captivity. He took such measures as he 
could to harmonize the different parties and to secure peace 
and order in the country, and then he departed amid such 


400 RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 


scenes of sorrow among the people and the army, “as” 
says an eye-witness, ‘can never be forgotten.” 

But Prince Alexander seems to have been thoroughly 
disheartened and discouraged. He knew that Russia, in- 
censed against him before, would be more his enemy than 
ever; Turkey under temporary Russian influence seemed 
to have changed her policy; his people, loyal as they were 
to him, were apprehensive of the end, and party spirit raged 
more fiercely than before his abdication. The Russian 
party was now bold and noisy, denouncing the prince, and 
predicting his speedy overthrow. Alexander himself was in 
doubt whom he could trust in the army, and among those 
about him. 

Some Shakespeare commentators have characterized 
Romeo as the man who was always unlucky. Luck went 
against him at every opportunity. Prince Alexander is the 
Romeo of contemporary history. Before he left Lemberg 
he had addressed a submissive telegram to his Russian 
cousin, intimating that he would thenceforward promote 
Russian interests if let alone. This telegram had no results 
except to injure his position. 

He abdicated, believing that Bulgaria must succumb to 
Russia; but she did not succumb. She sent him a deputa- 
tion, after he had reached his home in Darmstadt, imploring 
him to reconsider his resolution and return. When he gave 
an emphatic refusal to this request, she elected Prince 
Ferdinand of Coburg, grandson of Louis Philippe, as his 
successor. 

Prince Ferdinand’s father was a German prince and an 
Austrian officer ; his mother was the wealthy and admirable 
Princess Clementine. 

No choice probably could have been less agreeable to the 
czar, who wanted the Bulgarians to choose Prince Nikita of 
Mingrelia, a Caucasian principality. The dislike of the 
Russian court to King Louis Philippe and his family is well 
known. ‘The revolution of 1830 destroyed the hopes and 
plans of the Emperor Nicholas for the attainment of Con- 


PRINCE RPLRDINAND OF BOULGAKIA 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URBANA 


ts] 
| 


if aiid 
THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 401! ! | 


stantinople. Besides this, Prince Ferdinand, being an Aus- 
trian officer and accustomed to hold personal relations with 
the Austrian court, might naturally be expected to favor 
Austrian interests when they should come into collision with 
those of Russia. 

It was in September, 1887, that Prince Ferdinand arrived 
in Sofia to assume his new position. Few people expected 
that he would be suffered to hold it long. If Prince Alex- 
ander, tried, and beloved, a brilliant general, a man of 
mature age, and of seven years’ experience in the affairs of 
Bulgaria, had abdicated in utter discouragement, how could 
it be expected that Prince Ferdinand, who so far as the 
world knew, had shown no marked ability, should succeed, 
when his very election was a menace to Russia? 

‘‘T do not envy the man who may be called to fill the 
place of Prince Alexander,” wrote an old resident of Con- 
stantinople when the choice of a new prince was yet unmade. 
‘Tf he attempts to rule in the interests of Bulgaria he will 
be subjected to every insult, and thwarted at every step. 
If he is simply a Russian satrap he will be hated by his 
people.” 

Nevertheless Prince Ferdinand has held on his way with- 
out any more violent catastrophes than a new conspiracy 
which ended in the execution of a Russian agent, and the 
assassination of his finance minister. He has been prince 
of Bulgaria nearly as long as Prince Alexander, and feels 
himself sufficiently secure to have lately taken to wife 
Princess Maria Louisa of Parma. She is a descendant of 
the elder branch of his mother’s family, — her grandmother 
having been the Princess Louise, sister of the Comte de 
Chambord. 

Prince Ferdinand has been fortunate in his prime min- 
ister, M. Stambouloff, who was president of the provisional 
government during the change of princes. His fortunes 
are bound up with those of Prince Ferdinand, for whose 
acceptance of the Bulgarian throne he is mainly responsible. 
He is extremely popular in the country. That Russia is 

26 


“UO2’ KUSSIA-AND TURKEY IN THE XIXTH CEN TORY, 


bitterly opposed both to him and his prince is probably an 
additional reason why they are beloved by the Bulgarians. 
Nevertheless the bullet that killed the unfortunate minister 
of finance had been aimed at M. Stambouloff; happily for 
Bulgaria it killed a man less important to the country. 

Bulgaria has now her railroads, and, in the language of 
our time and country, ‘‘ seems to be forging ahead.” What 
may be in store for her no man can know. 

Prince Ferdinand is a man of excellent education, far 
superior to that inadequate training which he said himself 
is considered sufficient for the scions of royal houses. 

Alexander of Battenberg went back to Hesse where he. 
bought himself a handsome country-seat, and the next 
thing the world heard of him was in connection with the 
sorrowful scenes that took place round the death-bed of 
the Emperor Frederic. 

The Battenbergs are exceptionally fine young men, — men 
of a pattern it is hard to find as husbands for Protestant 
princesses. Queen Victoria, who likes match-making, has 
married two of them to her descendants, one to her daughter 
Princess Beatrice, another to her granddaughter the child 
of Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, and it had been 
arranged that Prince Alexander should marry Princess 
Victoria, the second daughter of the Emperor Frederic. 
They had been engaged some time and it was supposed 
that they were much attached: to each other. The old 
Emperor William and his chancellor Prince Bismarck, ex- 
ceedingly disapproved the match, and the marriage was 
postponed until the parents of the princess should have full 
authority. It was understood that if the dying Emperor 
Frederic lived till June, the young people, in spite of Prince 
Bismarck, should be married by his death-bed. But the 
Emperor Frederic died before June came, and Alexander’s 
unlucky star prevented his marriage. It is said that it was 
not so much the czar’s political objection to Prince Alex- 
ander that frustrated the match as the extreme personal 
dislike felt for him by the young Emperor William. 


THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. 403 


However that may be, while the luckless Alexander was 
still looked upon by the public as a fascinating and accom- 
plished prince, robbed of his principality by the animosity 
of one emperor, and of his bride by the unreasonable 
prejudices of another, one fine morning he destroyed with 
his own hand his prestige as a lover. Again he descended 
from his pedestal and disappointed his admirers by marry- 
ing at the Prefecture of Mentone, a German prima donna, 
Madame Loisinger, daughter of a game-keeper in the service 
of the emperor of Austria. 

It was subsequently reported that French law refused to 
admit the validity of the marriage, as the prince had repre- 
sented himself under a false name to the prefect of Mentone. 
It has also been reported that, the marriage not having 
proved satisfactory, the prince has separated from his wife 
and entered the Austrian service as an officer of cavalry. 

“ Chassez crotssez,”’ said De Morny when news was 
brought him that Cavaignac, late dictator of France, was 
occuping the rooms assigned the Prince-President Louis 
Napoleon when prisoner at Ham. Anda similar change 
of places seems to have taken place in the lives of Prince 
Ferdinand and Prince Alexander. The ex-Austrian officer 
now occupies the throne of the prince ; the ex-prince wears 
the helmet of the Austrian officer. Doubtless it sits more 
easily on the head of Alexander than on that of Ferdinand 
does the princely crown. 


404 NOTE -TO\CHAPTERVALV. 


NOTE. LOSCHUAP (IE Ra lys 


RECENT accounts of the persecutions of American mission- 
aries in Armenia, in accordance with a policy that apparently 
had its beginning in 1884, seem hard to reconcile with the char- 
acter of Sultan Abdul Hamid, as he is described by all who have 
been brought into personal contact with him in Constantinople. 
Whether these persecutions have been inspired by the Russian 
government, which, in 1891, instructed its consuls in Asiatic Tur- 
key to place obstacles in the way of missionary educational en- 
terprises, or arise from the sultan’s wish to keep the improved 
education he designs for his subjects in his own hands; whether 
it be the result of representations made to the Sublime Porte by 
unfriendly pashas; or, lastly, whether it has anything to do with 
a personal peculiarity of the sultan himself, —who can say? 
The personal peculiarity that I allude to is a disposition some- 
what akin to the cryptographic mania which disturbed the world 
of letters in the case of Shakespeare. The sultan finds offence 
where it is quite impossible offence could have been intended, 
and an idea of the kind once having been entertained can never 
be removed from his mind. A clever Turkish writer, having 
translated the “Avare” of Moliére, gave great offence by be- 
stowing on Harpagon the popular name in Turkey for a miser. 
This name, it seems, had sometimes been bestowed in sport on 
Abdul Hamid by his brothers. Nothing could convince him 
that it was not intended as an insult; and on his accession it led 
at once to the disgrace and banishment of the unfortunate trans- 
lator. I have said already that the expression “servant of his 
people ” (‘servant ” being in Turkish synonymous with “slave” 
poisoned the mind of the sultan against followers of the policy 
of Midhat Pasha; and in the missionary schools of Armenia 
text-books on chemistry were suppressed because the symbol 
H,O (denoting water) was supposed to indicate that Hamid II. 


was a cipher. 
Wee 


INDEX. 


A. 


Aali Pasha, vizier, 201, 202, 208, 336. 

Abdurahman, ameer of Afghanistan, 
316, 317, 318. 

Abdul Aziz, sultan, 199-206, 208, 210, 
215-222, 230, 337-341, 363. 

Abdul Hamid I., sultan, 68. 

Abdul Hamid II., sultan, 205, 208, 
228, 229, 230, 341-356, 396. His 
family, 353. 

Abdul Medjid, sultan, 104, 197, 1098, 
199, 205. 

Adrianople, 82, 257, 258; Treaty of, 
$2,902,238; 

Afghanistan, 313, 316. 

Akh Pasha (General Skobeleff), 247, 
258. 

Aksakoff, Ivan, 284, 296. 

Alexander I., emperor, 16. 17, 18, 20- 
25,27, 31, 70, 71, 83, 91, 92, 106. 
Alexander IJ., emperor-liberator, 86, 
153, 154, 167-171, 180-183, 193- 
1090,5 237, 5251, 253, 254, 265-263, 
279, 326; attempts on the life of, 

184, 185, 186, 268, 269, 270. 

Alexander III., emperor, 182, 183, 
279-287, 289, 290, 291, 292, 300, 
321, 322, 325, 328, 329, 334, 357, 
379, 400; family of, 301, 302. 

Alexander of Battenberg, prince of 
Bulgaria, 270, 366, 393-400, 402, 
403. 

Alexander, 
369. 

Alexis, son of Peter the Great, 12. 

Ali, pasha of Jannina, 70. 


king of Servia, 368, 


Alikhanoff, 318, 319. 

Allied Armies at Gallipoli, 120, 121; 
at Varna, 122-127; reach the Cri- 
mea, 127-130; on the flank march, 
130; before Sebastopol, 130-159. 

Alma, battle of, 130, 134. 

Alp Arslan, 44, 45. 

Amurath L., sultan, 46, 51. 

Amurath II, sultan, 55, 56, 57. 

Anna Ivanovna, empress, 13. 

Armenia, 354; missionaries in, 404. 


B. 


Bajazet I., sultan 51-54. 

Bajazet II., sultan, 65. 

Baker Pasha (Col. Valentine), 319. 

Baku, oil-wells at, 319. 

Balaclava, 137, 138, 139}; battle of, 
140-144. 

Balance of power, 114, 232, 233. 

Balkans, 233, 255. 

Baltic Provinces, (Livland or Livonia, 
Courland, Esthland or Esthonia), 
323-328. 

Bashi-Bazouks, 237, 253, 335- 

Batoum, 320. 

Beckwith, Colonel, 131, 132. 

Belgrade, 52, 57, 233, 363- 

Beloochistan, 317. 

Berlin, Congress of, 233, 258, 259, 
260, 357 379) 381, 392, 393, 395- 

Bessarabia, 379. 

Biat, 215. 

Black Sea, 128. 

Bokhara, 315. 


408 


Boski, railroad accident in Southern 
Russia at, 321, 322. 

Bosquet, General, 145, 156. 

Bosnia, 211, 233-236; history of, 365, 
388-392. 

Boucicault, Sieur de, 52, 53- 

Boyard, 372. 

Bozzaris, Marco, 76, 83. 

Brailow, siege of, So. 

Brandes, George, guoted, 284. 

Broniec, Marshal, 28. 

Bucharest, 246, 3773; Treaty of, 69, 
80. 

Bulgaria, 1228; (233, 234, . 230,40 237, 
392-403. 

Bulgars, 392. 

Burial certificate, 235. 

Burnaby, Capt., his ride to Khiva, 
313, 314- 

Butler, Capt., 122. 

Byron, George, Lord, 76, 77. 


C. 


Caimacan, 371. 

Catherine I., empress, 12, 13. 

Catherine II., empress, 13, 14. 

Canning, George, 77. 

Canning, Sir Stratford (Lord Strat- 
ford de Redclyffe), 109, 110. 

Canrobert, 145, 155, 156, 157. 

Capoleone. Doctor, 208, 217, 228, 
230, 231. 

Carmen Sylva, see Elizabeth, queen 
of Roumania. 

Cattaro, 383, 385. 

Caucasus, 94. 

Cattinje, 381, 385. 

Chancelor, Sir Richard. ro. 

Charles of Hohenzollern, king of 
Roumania, 375, 376, 379, 403- 

Charge of the Heavy Brigade, 141, 
143. 

Charge of the Light Brigade, 140- 
143. 

Charlotte of Prussia, wife of Em- 
peror Nicholas, 85, 86, 100, 101. 
Chlapowski, general and dictator, 29, 

36, 37) 39: 
Cholera, 37, 125, 126, 127, 129, E31. 
Circassia, 94. 


INDEX. 


Circassians, 236, 237, 335. 

Cochrane, Capt. Lord (Earl of Dun- 
donald), 76. 

Codrington, Admiral Sir Edward, 79, 
So. 

Constantine, Grand Duke, 14, 18, 26- 
37, 86. 

Constantine Palzologos, emperor, 58- 
62. 

Constantinople, 52,54, 58-62, 82, 111, 
260; why coveted by Russia, 105, 
106. 

Coronation of Nicholas I., 33, 34; of 
Alexander II]., 183,184; of Alex- 
ander IIT., 284-290. 

Cox, Hon. S. S., ambassador, gzoted, 
347-353, 356- 

Couza, John Alexander, hospodar of 
Wallachia and Moldavia, 372, 373, 
374+ 

Cracow, 97, Iol. 

Crimea, 24. 

Crimean War, begun, 110-114, 116; 
rendezvous at Gallipoli, 120-121; 
armies sail for Varna, 122; sail for 
Crimea, 127, 128, 129: landing and 
flank march, 129, 130; hardships, 
137-140, 146, 147, 148, 159; close 
of, 164; results of, 165, 166; gen- 
erals in, 155, 156, 157; Russia after 
the, 165, 106; 

Crusades, 103. 

Cyprus, 260. 

Czartoriski, Prince Adam, 27, 39. 


Dy: 


Daghestan, 94. 

Dagmar, Marie, princess of Denmark, 
wife of Alexander III., 182, 301. 

Danilo, prince of Montenegro, 380. 

Danube, 238 ; passage of, 245. 

Denmark, queen of, 297. 

Dickson, Doctor, 221, 339. 

Diebitsch, Marshal, 37, 80, 81, 82. 

Dolgorouka, Princess, 183, 200, 267, 
272. 

Dolma-Baghtché Palace, 203, 206, 
209, 215, 350. 

Dondoukoff-Koursakoff, Prince, 259, 
394; 397+ 


INDEX. 


Dorothea, princess of Montbelliard, 
wife of Paul I., 14, 26. 

Ducas, quoted, 61, 62. 

Dushan, Stephen, 359. 


E. 


Edhem Pasha, 204. 

Elizabeth Petrovna, empress, 13. 

Elizabeth, queen of England, 10, 11. 

Elizabeth, princess of Wied, queen 
of Roumania (Carmen Sylva), 376- 
380. 

Elliot, Sir Henry, ambassador, 206, 
guoted, 337-341. 

Emancipation of Russian serfs, 171, 


172, 176, 1773; compared with 
negro, 175, 176; of serfs in Es- 
thonia, 326. 


Eugené, Prince, 67. 


F. 


Ferdinand of Hohenzollern, crown 
prince of Roumania, 380. 

Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, prince of 
Bulgaria, 400, 401, 402. 

Finland, 17, 200, 201, 202, 205, 208, 
326. 

Forbes, Archibald, guoted, 251, 252, 
253,393: 

Frederick II., emperor, 86, 402. 

France, 40, 41, 69, 91, 92. 

Fuad Pasha, vizier, 201, 


336. 


202, 208, 


G, 


Galitzin, Princess and Prince Dimitri, 
248 

Gallipoli, 120, 121. 

Geok Tepi, 261, 318. 

George, king of Greece, 83. 

George, Grand Duke, 289. 

Georgia, 94. 

Gladstone, Mr., guoted, 266, 381, 382, 
383. 

Goldenberg, assassin, 268. 

Gorgey, General, 102. 


409 


Gortaloff, Major, 244, 245, 246. 
Gortschakoff, Prince, 133, 315, 316. 
Gourko, General, 250. 

Greece, 23, 70, 82, 83; revolution in 
70-76, 80, 82, 83. 

Greek and Latin churches; attempt 
to unite them, 55, 56. 

Gregorius, Patriarch, murdered, 72. 

Grudzinski, Count, 28. 

Grudzinska, Janetta, princess of Lo- 
wicz, wife of Grand Duke Constan- 
tine, 25, 29, 30, 33-38. 

Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, 
325° 

Gustiniani, Gian, 59, 61. 

Gwilt, Colonel, 158. 


Ea 


Hairullah Effendi, sheik-ul-Islam, 211, 
213, 2875 Zlop 22am 220s 
Harold Hardrada, 9. 
Hartman, 269, 270, 274. 
Hassan Bey, 223-228. 
Hastings, Captain Frank, 76. 
Helfman, Hesse, 277, 278, 280, 
Henry IV., Shakespeare’s, 55. 
Herat, 313, 316-319. 
Herzegovina, 211, 228, 233, 
history of, 388-392. 
Hetairists, 22, 23, 70, 71. 
Holy Alliance, 18, 23, 70, 71. 
Holy places, 104, 105, 109. 
Hospodar, 371. 
Howe, DrS..Gy 77. 
Hungary, Tol, 102. 
Hunniades, 56. 
Hussein Avni, 211-214, 216, 217, 221, 
222522322 RecaOwee2 7 


I. 


Ibrahim Pasha, 79, 93. 

Ignatieff, General, 209, 280, 282, 300, 
331, 335+ 

India, 43, 44, 315, 316 

Inkerman, first battle of, 144; second: 
battle of, 144. 

Ivan the Terrible, 10, 11, 324, 325. 


410 


J. 


Janissaries, 46-49, 58, 69, 77, 78. 

Jassy, 70, 373. 

Jews, persecuted, 291, 323, 328-334. 

Juliana, princess of Saxe-Coburg, 
wife of Grand Duke Constantine, 
26, 27. 


Ke 


Kaiserli, 253, 277,4226,226, 

Kanaris, 76, 83. 

Kashgar, 315. 

Kara, George, 359-362. 

Karageorgevitch family, 362, 363, 364, 
386. 

Kars, first siege of, 164; second siege 
Gl,-271. 

Katkoff, journalist, 280, 282. 

Kaulbars, 397. 

Kennan, Mr., 303, 3043 quoted, 306, 
307. 

Kératry, Count E, de, 197, 356. 

Khanates, 314. 

Khiva, 314, 315. 

Kinglake, Mr., guoted, 106, 112, 113, 
128, 130, 131, 134. 

Kingston, Mr. W. Beatty, guoted, 362, 
363, 3745 375) 376) 378, 379 

Krapotkin, Prince, 268. 

Kremlin, 284, 287. 

Kriidener, Madame de, Barbara Julie 
von Wielinghoff, 18-24. 


L 
Ladislas, king of Hungary and Poland, 
56, 57) 58. 
Lanin, Mr. E. B., guoted, 297, 298, 
299, 328. 


La Valette, Marquis de, 104, 105. 

Leopold, king of the Belgians, Queen 
Victoria’s letters to, 98, 99, 100, 113, 
114. 

Liprandi, General, 140. 

Lowicz, Princess, see Grudzinska. 


INDEX. 


M. 


Mahmoud II., sultan, 68, 69, 70, 72, 
77-80, 93, 197, 199. 

Malakoff and Redan attacked June 18, 
1855, 158; evacuated, Sept. 5, 160- 
164. 

Mamelon, 157. 

Marie, princess of Darmstadt, wife of 
Alexander II., 169, 183, 269, 272. 

Maritza, story of, 75, 76. 

Mavroyéni, Doctor, 208, 351. 

Mehemet Ali, khedive, 69, 70, 78. 

Mehemet Reschid Effendi, 353. 

Melikoff, Loris, 271, 272, 273, 280, 
281. 

Mentzikoff, Prince, 108, 109, 130, 131, 
133; 139,140,164. 

Merv, 318, 319. 

Metternich, Prince, 108, 

Michael Obrenovitch, prince of Servia, 
362, 363, 364, 365. 

Midhat Pasha, 211, 212, 213, 217, 224, 
225, 226, 336, 337, 338; 343. 

Milan, king of Servia, 364-370. 

Millingen, Doctor, 339. 

Milosch, Obrenovitch, prince of Ser- 
via, 361, 362-367. 

Mingrelia, 94. 

Mir, 172, 173, 174, 178, 179, 180, 304, 
305, 307, 308. 

Mohammed II., 58, 59, 60-65. 

Mohammed, Nedim Pasha, 208, 211, 
212, 335 

Moldavia, 32, 65, 71, 92, 93, 233. 

Montenegro, history of, 381-385 ; ad- 
venture in, 386, 387, 388. 

Morny, Duc de, 183, 184, 403. 

Murad V., ex-sultan, 201, 203-209 
212-218, 222, 223, 228-231, 350. 


N. 


Napier, Admiral Sir Charles, 112, 114, 
1x5: 

Napoleon I., 15, 16, 17, 18, 39, 83, 
260. 

Napoleon III., 105, 109, 112, 159, 167, 
168, 185, 186, 375, 385. 

Nasmyth, Captain, 122. 


INDEX. 


Natalie de Keczko, wife of King Milan 
of Servia, 365-368, 370. 

Navarino, battle of, 79, 80. 

Nesselrode, Count, 11o. 

Nicholas J., emperor, 32, 33, 85-89, 
91, 92, 93, 96-100, 106, 107, 122, 
$23, 351, 152, 153, 167-100, 1873 
children of, ror. 

Nicholas, czarevitch, son of Alexan- 
der I1.,-169, 432,, 185. 

Nicholas, czarevitch, son of Alexan- 
der III., 301, 322. 

Nightingale, Miss Florence, and hos- 
pitals, 148, 149, 158, 159. 

Nihilism, 155, 267-281, 290, 2¢1, 294, 
310, 311; Nihilists, 26, 155, 186-190, 
290, 291; quotations from Nihilist 
writings, 187, 188, Tog. 

Nikita, prince of Mingrelia, 4oo. 
Nikita, prince of Montenegro, 385, 
386; his wife and children, 386. 

Nisi Novgorod, 9, 20. 

Nizam, 79, 81. 

Norsemen, 9. 


O. 


Obrenovitch, Milosch, and his family, 
361, 362-367. 

Oliphant, Laurence, 1343 quoted, 123, 
124, 181, 386, 387, 388. 

Omar Pasha, 116, 121 ; visit of the 
generals to, 123, 124. 

Orkhan, 45, 46, 50, 51- 

Osman Pasha, 243, 248, 250, 366. 

Otho, king of Greece, 82. 

Othman, 45; sword of, 216, 342. 

Ottoman Empire, 45, 46, 54, 68, 83, 
84. 

Oxus, 313, 314- 


Pp. 


Padishah, 348. 

Palzologos, John, 50, 51; John II., 
55, 58; Manuel, 55, 56; Constan- 
tine, 58-62; the renegade, 64. 

Pamirs, 322, 323. 

Pan-Slavism, 259, 261, 295, 296, 357) 
358. 


All 


Paropamisus range, 316, 319. 

Paskievitch, Marshal,. 29, 40, 80, 93, 
Oc Ntoigi 22. 

Paul 1.) emperor, 13, 14.015, 16, 

Pélissier, General, Duke of Malakoff, 
TIO, 119,015 7« 

Perovskya, Sophia, 269, 276, 278-280. 

Persia, Russia’s war with, 93. 

Pestel, 89. 

Peterpthe Greateo, tr, 12, 32555320 ; 
will of, 89, 90, 91. 

Peter II. and Peter III., 13. 

Peter the Poet, prince of Montenegro, 
383, 384- 

Peter the Saint, prince of Montenegro, 
363. 

Philippopolis, 396. 

Plevna, 243, 244, 247, 248. 

Poland, 17, 18, 27, 326; revolution in 
1831, 34-41, Ior; rising of 1863, 
131. 

Pomacks, 335. 

Pozzo di Borgo, 91, 92: 

Probédonostzeff, minister, 298, 334. 


Q. 


Quetta, 317. 

Queen Victoria, visit of Emperor 
Nicholas, 97-100; sees the Guards 
start for the Crimea, 113}; reviews 
the Fleet, rejoices over the victory 
of the Alma, 133; sees General Can- 
robert in Paris, 157; distributes 
Crimean medals, 165. 


R. 


Radetsky, General, 250, 256. 

Raglan, Lord (Lord Fitzroy Somer- 
set), 112, 117, T1Q-124, 128, 132, 
137, 151, 157, 158, 159 

Randolph, Sir Thomas, ambassador, 
te 

Razumoffsky, Alexis, 13. 

Rhodes, siege of, 64; second siege, 
65, 66. 

Romanoffs, 11, 85, 87. 

Rose, Mr. W. Kinnaird, gzoted, 240, 


242, 243, 256. 


412 


Roumania, 370-381; religion in, 371, 
372. 

Roumanians in the War of 1877, 378. 

Roumelia, 233, 366, 395, 396. 

Ruchdi Pasha, minister for foreign 
affairs, 251, 212, 217%, 225,(220% 

Russia, 9, 85, 174, 175, 182; prophe- 
cies concerning, 43, 63, 103, 108, 251, 
237; policy of, 107, 108; present 
plan of government in, 291-294. 

Russian hatred to Turks, 168; inva- 
sions of Turkey, 80, 81, 111, 238; 
landed proprietor, a, 193-196; liber- 
alism, 398; names, 238; officers and 
soldiers, 251, 252, 321; population, 
294; public opinion, 294, 295, 296; 
railroads, 193, 306, 307, 313, 314, 
320, 321; rural government of, 178, 
179, 1803 sects in, IgI,'192. 

Russia after the Crimean War, 165, 
166, 167. 

Russia after the Turkish War, 266, 
267. 


ae 


Saint-Arnaud, Marshal Achille de 
(Jacques Leroy), 117, 118, 119, 121, 
123, 124, 127, 128, 129, 140, 145, 
146. 

Salonika, 72237. © 

San Stefano, Treaty of, 258, 260, 395. 

Samarcand,. 313, 319. 

Sardinians, 156, 159, 165. 

Scanderbeg: (Alexander Castriot), 58. 

Schamyl, 95-97. 

Scio, 73, 74; 75) 204. 

Sebastopol, 25, 125, 126; attempt to 
give plan of, 135, 136; fleet de- 
stroyed, 136, 137; life in, during 
the siege, 154; scene during brief 
truce, 157, 158; evacuation of, 162, 
163, 164. 

Sedgwick, Miss Catherine, 
73-75° 

Selamick, 216. 

Seljouk Turks, 44. 

Senova, battle of, 255, 256. 

Sergius, Grand Duke, 291, 201. 

Servia, 67, 228, 233, 237, 238; its his- 
tory, 359-370. 


guoted, 


INDEX. 


Severnaya, 162, 163. 

Seymour, Sir Hamilton, 106, 107. 

Shipka Pass, 255, 256. 

Shumla, 80; visit of generals to, 123, 
124. 

Siberia, 306, 307, 308. 

Siberian exiles, 192, 193, 267, 304- 
R12; 

Silistria, 121, 122. 

Simpson, General James, 159. 

Sinope, 111, 112. 

Skobeleff, General Mikhail Dimitri- 
vitch, 238-250, 253-264, 315, 316, 
Broe 

Skobeleff, General Dimitri 
vitch, 238, 239, 254, 261. 

Slavs, 358, 359) 371, 372. 

Slavophils, 295, 327. 

Slivnitza, 396. 

Sofia, 395. 

Softas, 211, 216. 

Solyman the Magnificent, sultan, 65, 
66. 

Stambouloff, M., prime minister in 
Bulgaria, 401. 

Stratford de Redclyffe, Lord, see Can- 
ning. 

Suwarroff, Marshal, 15, 26. 


Nicolai- 


ie 


Taganrog, 25. 

Tcheragan, Palace, 218, 350. 

Tchernaya, 139, 159. 

Tekké (Turcomans), 261, 315, 320. 

Tennyson, 143. 

Timours $2553, 54. 

Todleben, General, 
250, 

Tolstoi, Count Dimitri, minister, 273, 
304. 

Tolstoi, Count Lyof, 155; guoted, 157, 
158, 160-164, 218. 

Top Kapou Palace, 217, 222, 350. 

Treaty of Bucharest, 69, 80; of Adri- 
anople, 82, 92; of Unkiar-Ske- 
lessi, 93; Of Paris, 178; of San 
Stefano, 258; of Berlin, 259, 260. 

Trench, Mrs.,from “‘Monthly Packet,’’ 
guoted, 285, 286-289. 


140, 160, 2240; 


INDEX. 


Trochu, General Jules, 128. 
Troubetskoi, Prince, 87, 88. 
Turcomans, see Tekké. 

Turkish Empire, 42, 66, 67 ; race, 42, 
43, 44, 45, 233, 234, 2353 fleets de- 
stroyed, 79, 80, 111, 112; parlia- 
ment, 343; population, 84; soldiers, 
67, 116, 117, 354, 3553 Sultans, 40, 
65, 66, 67, 69; Viziers, 48; when 
Crimean War began, 166. 

Turkestan, 260, 313, 320. 

Turks, 42-45, 103. 


U. 


Unkiar-Skelessi, Treaty of, 93, 111. 
Ural mountains, 306; railroad over, 


306, 307- 


V. 


Valette, Marquis de La, 105. 

Vambéry, Arminius, 320, 344, 345; 
quoted, 320, 345, 34, 347+ 

Varescovo, Princess Héléne, 380. 

Varna, 80, 81, 122, 125, 127, 133. 

Verestchagen, Alexander, 239; guoted, 
239, 240, 241, 243, 255+ 

Verona, Congress of, 23. 

Vicars, Capt. Hedley, 147. 

Victoria, see Queen Victoria. 

Victoria, Princess of Prussia, 403, 

Vienna, 66; Congress of, 17, 230, 231, 
380, 383. 

Villagos, 102. 

Vladimir, Grand Duke, 182, 302. 

Vladivostok, 307. 


413 
W. 


Wallace, Mr. Mackenzie, 175 ; guoted, 
176-179, 193-196. 

Wallachia, 22, .71,° 92) 9,233, 3723 
see also Roumania. . 

Waterloo, 22. 

War, Russia with Napoleon I., 15 ; 
with Persia, 93; with Poland, 36; 
Crimean, 111-166; in the Cau- 
casus, 95-97 ; with Turkey, 238-259. 

Warsaw, 36, 38, 39, 40, 333- 

Weestyne, Ivan de, guoted, 263, 264. 

William I., William II., emperors, 
86, 201. 

Witte, 300. 

Woronzoff, Prince, 96, 97. 


Be 


Xenia, Grand Duchess, 286, 289, 301, 
321. 


Vie 


Yarkand, 315. 

Yildiz, 351. 

Ypsilanti, Alexander, 22, 23, 70, 71. 
Yusef-Izzeddin, 201, 210, 351. 


Z. 


Zankoff, 397. 

Zaptieh, story of a, 235. 
Zelony Gory, 247. 

Zemstvo, 178, 273, 282, 291. 
Zizim, Prince, 65. 

Zouboff brothers, 16. 


rth. 
Soll ie 
Dy OU ad, Stee ® 


